香港米埔湿地：当开发商瞄准水鸟天堂
香港——在两座人口总数为2000万的特大城市之间，卡着东亚最重要的一片湿地之一，在那里，珍稀的鸟类在传统的虾池间歌唱。
Look up, and looming right above this rustic setting are the crush of skyscrapers in Shenzhen, China, almost close enough to touch. Just out of view behind some hills to the south are the congested streets of Kowloon and Hong Kong Island.
抬头看，在这片田园风情之上，中国深圳密集的摩天大楼赫然耸立，近得几乎触手可及。南面的山丘，挡住了看见九龙和香港岛拥挤街道的视线。
But in this corner of northwest Hong Kong, tens of thousands of cormorants, herons, egrets, sandpipers and other birds, including endangered species like the black-faced spoonbill, gather each winter to feed on the mud flats. Eucalyptus trees line a path that cuts along the shrimp and fishponds, where small restaurants serve up the day’s harvest.
在香港西北的这个角落里，成千上万的鸬鹚、苍鹭、白鹭、鹬和其他鸟类，包括濒临灭绝的物种，比如黑脸琵鹭，每年冬天都聚集在一起，以泥沼地为生。桉树沿着虾池和鱼塘排列出一条小路，那里的小餐馆提供当天收获的食物。
For bird watchers, bike riders and day-trippers from Hong Kong, the wetlands offer welcome respite from the city’s crowds, even if the sound of birdcalls is regularly interrupted by the clank of hammers and the beep-beep of reversing vehicles from an industrial district nearby.
对于来自香港的观鸟者、骑行者和一日游游客来说，这片湿地提供了喘息的机会，远离城市拥挤人潮，即便鸟鸣经常被附近工业区锤子的叮当声和倒车的滴滴声打断。
But in a place where land prices are among the most expensive in the world, shopping malls and apartment blocks are far more profitable than shellfish, and the area is increasingly attractive to developers.
但在这个地价位居世界前茅的地方，购物中心和公寓楼比贝类更有利可图，而且开发商对这里的兴趣越来越大。
“In a few years, this will all be housing,” said Yip Ka-kit, 32, as he took a break from riding his bicycle around Nam Sang Wai, a 400-acre wedge of the wetlands bounded by two rivers and filled with fish ponds and reed beds. “People in Hong Kong only care about the economy.”
“几年以后，这里将全都变成住宅楼，”在南生围周围骑车休闲的32岁叶家杰(音)说。这是一片400英亩(约合162公顷)的湿地，由两条河环绕，遍布鱼塘和芦苇地。 “香港人只关心经济。”
Signs warning of the punishment for arson — up to life in prison — hang prominently in the wetlands, a reminder of one of their most imminent threats: fire. A series of blazes this spring scorched parts of Nam Sang Wai.
湿地里醒目地挂着严惩纵火行为的警告牌，最高可达终身监禁，它提醒着这里最紧迫的威胁之一：火灾。今年春天，一系列火灾烧焦了南生围的部分地区。
It is not the first time suspicious fires have burned in the area, which environmentalists and officials believe may have been set to undermine its ecological value.
这不是该地区第一次发生可疑的火灾，环保人士和官员们认为，这可能是人为放火，为了破坏该地区的生态价值。
Police say they are investigating, but have arrested no suspects. Last year during a public hearing, a representative of a company that has applied to develop the area denied it had any role in the blazes.
警方表示，他们正在调查，但没有逮捕任何嫌犯。去年，在一次公开听证会上，申请开发该地区的公司代表否认该公司与火灾有关。
“There has been a longtime struggle between the landowners and preservationists about the future of that piece of wetland,” said Eddie Chu, a member of the Hong Kong Legislative Council who represents the area and has called for protection of Nam Sang Wai.
“土地所有者和环保人士之间就这片湿地的未来进行了长期的斗争，”代表该地区的香港立法会议员、呼吁保护南生围的朱凯廸说。
Seen from above, the wetlands look like a net, with thin bands of land looping around blue blocks of water.
从空中俯瞰，这片湿地看起来像一张网，在蓝色的水域周围环绕着一圈狭长地带。
For centuries, rice paddies filled the area. Then beginning in the 1940s, the people who worked this land, many of them refugees from war and political chaos in China, turned the paddies into fishponds that earned far more than rice.
几个世纪以来，这片区域遍布稻田。后来从20世纪40年代开始，许多因中国的战争和政治混乱而来的难民在这里种地，他们把稻田变成了鱼塘，赚的收入远远超过稻米。
For decades, landowners have sought to develop the area, only to be rebuffed by the courts and government agencies. Last year the local planning board rejected the most recent proposal from a developer because of concerns about the potential loss of wetlands. The developer said it would appeal.
几十年来，土地所有者一直寻求开发这片地区，但遭到法院和政府机构拒绝。去年，出于担心可能失去这片湿地，当地规划委员会拒绝了开发商的最新提议。开发商表示会提出申诉。
The total size of the wetlands area is about 4,350 acres, equivalent to five of Manhattan’s Central Park. Part of the wetlands are off limits to large-scale development, including the Mai Po Nature Reserve, which is protected under the Ramsar Convention, an international treaty for the conservation of wetlands.
湿地区域总面积为大约4350英亩(约合1760公顷)，相当于五个曼哈顿中央公园(Central Park)。部分湿地是大规模开发的禁区，包括受保护湿地的国际公约拉母塞公约(Ramsar Convention)保护的米埔自然保护区(Mai Po Nature Reserve)。
The reserve includes traditional shrimp farming ponds that have largely disappeared from the rest of China. The ponds, known as gei wai, make use of the tides to suck in young shrimp from Deep Bay. The ponds are then closed off, allowing the shrimp to grow in protected lagoons, until they are harvested by draining the water during an ebb tide.
该保护区包括传统的养虾塘，在中国其他地区，这样的池塘基本已经消失。这种池塘名为“基围”，它利用潮汐吸入后海湾的幼虾。然后封闭池塘，让虾在这个受保护的泻湖中生长，然后在退潮期间，通过把水抽干来收获它们。
The World Wide Fund for Nature in Hong Kong operates 21 gei wai in the reserve. The shrimp are harvested at night.
世界自然基金会香港分会在保护区内运营21个基围虾塘。虾都是在晚上收获的。
One night several pounds of shrimp were netted as a group of environment officials from mainland China watched and later dined on the shrimp, which were accompanied by soy sauce, chili peppers and beers.
一天晚上，中国大陆的一群环保官员网走了几磅虾，然后蘸着酱油和辣椒，就着啤酒吃了虾。
“When we harvest there are small fish and shrimp we don’t want, and the birds come and eat,” said Wen Xianji, assistant director of the Mai Po reserve. “This traditional way of aquaculture benefits both humans and birds.”
“那个时候有很多鸟，就来了就可以吃，因为收鱼以后有剩余的一些小的鱼、虾，他们不要了，鸟就来了可吃，”米埔保护区副总监文贤继说。 “所以他们传统的养殖方式对人类和鸟类都有益。”
The nature reserve has the added protection of its location along Hong Kong’s border with Shenzhen, where permits limit entry from the Hong Kong side, and a 15-foot fence topped with barbed wire blocks people from crossing from the mainland.
这个位于香港与深圳接壤处的自然保护区得到了额外保护，从香港进入这里要受许可证限制，还有一个15英尺(4.5米)高的围栏，上面架着铁丝网，阻止大陆人从这里穿过。
Still, poachers do sometimes visit by boat to catch mudskippers, amphibious fish used in Chinese medicine.
然而，有时会有人坐船来偷弹涂鱼，这种两栖鱼类是一种中药。
But other areas nearby, like Nam Sang Wai, have less concrete protections.
但附近的南生围等其他地区，就没有如此切实的保护。
The most recent development proposal in Nam Sang Wai would have included apartments for 6,500 people.
南生围最新的开发计划包括能容纳6500人的公寓楼。
The developer, a joint venture between a family that has long owned the land and Henderson Land Development, a large Hong Kong property company, said it would follow a model like the London Wetland Center, which included a residential development that financed a habitat preservation project.
这块土地由长期拥有它的家族与香港大型房地产公司恒基兆业地产有限公司(Henderson Land Development)的合资公司开发，该公司表示，它将采用像伦敦湿地中心那样的模式，其中包括为一个栖息地保护项目提供资金的住宅开发项目。
The proposed development itself would take up less than 10 percent of Nam Sang Wai’s 400 acres, with the remainder preserved as managed wetlands, its backers say.
该项目支持者表示，南生围共有400英亩土地，拟议的开发项目本身占地不到10%，其余部分将保留为受管理的湿地。
Environmental groups, however, oppose the plan.
然而，环保组织反对该计划。
“So far from what we’ve seen the scale of development is not compatible with the area,” said Woo Ming-chuan, conservation officer for the Hong Kong Bird Watching Society. “It’s quite sensitive and unique, and they want to build residential towers.”
“到目前为止，我们所看到的发展规模并不适合该地区，”香港观鸟会的保育官员胡明川说。“这里非常敏感和独特，而他们希望建造住宅楼。”
Ms. Woo said she believed any plan that sacrifices some of the wetlands would only encourage further encroachment.
胡明川说，她认为任何牺牲部分湿地的计划只会助长进一步的侵占。
“We are afraid that once approved it will be a precedent for similar applications in the future,” she said.
“我们担心，一旦获得批准，它将成为未来类似申请的先例，”她说。
For now, the area remains a popular weekend destination for walkers, cyclists and nature lovers, with the entrance to the wetlands a short walk from a shopping mall that sits atop a rail station.
目前，该地区仍然是步行者、骑行者和自然爱好者趋之若鹜的周末旅行地，湿地入口距离位于轻铁站上方的购物中心只有短短一段路程，步行即可到达。
A short sampan ride takes visitors across an eddy of the Shan Pui River. The captain can often be found sleeping on the boat, waiting for passengers to board the small wooden craft, with a maximum capacity of seven. It is the only ferry in Hong Kong that traverses a river and the only one human-powered.
游客可以乘坐舢板穿过山贝河的漩涡。人们经常会看到船长在船上睡觉，等着乘客登上这条最多可容纳7人的小木船。它是香港唯一一条横穿河流的渡轮，也是唯一一条使用人力划桨的渡轮。
Among people who visit the area, the fear is that the forces of development will eventually win out.
该地区的来访者担心，发展的力量最终胜出。
“Of course I want them to preserve this place,” said Mr. Yip, the cyclist. “If they fill in everywhere in Hong Kong with houses, there will be nothing left to do here.”
“我当然希望他们保留这个地方，”骑自行车的叶先生说。“如果他们在香港到处盖满房屋，那么这里就没有什么能做了。”
