The number of visitors to Hong Kong’s country parks has soared over the past 25 years. According to a study conducted by the School of Public Health of the University of Hong Kong, about one-third of the respondents visited country parks in the past three months – an estimated 2 million or more people. (The figures do not include non-Hong Kong citizens who are using the parks in even greater numbers – see previous BUZZ stories).
Hong Kong has designated 40% of its landmass as country parks, a figure that has been hailed as the highest among major cities. The Trailblazer Project Phase 1 sought to assess country park usage and its link with the “3Hs”: health, happiness, and harmony in a territory-wide survey of 1,011 Hong Kong citizens.
Among all respondents to the survey, 56.1% of them visited country parks at least once in the past year. Sai Kung District (68.7%), (Hong Kong Island) Eastern District (66.8%), and Tsuen Wan District (63.0%) have the highest percentage of country park users. Hiking, leisure walking, and barbecuing are among the most common activities. Almost half of the country park users (47.0%) hiked in their last visit, hiking for almost 2.5 hours on average. Over 80% of the respondents found country parks to be important to their life. The top three reasons respondents cited for visiting are good scenery, accompanying others, and convenient transport. Major barriers to non-users not visiting include lack of time, interest, and companions.
Comparisons were made between country park users and non users. Compared to non-users, users tended to be young, male and have a higher household income. Preliminary analyses suggest that country park users had better self-reported health than non-users.
The survey results collected in the current study were compared with onsite visitor surveys conducted between 1982 and 1991 and the General Household Survey conducted by the government in 1990. In 2018, 32.9% of respondents visited country parks in the past three months, which was 2.6 times more than the number recorded in 1990 (12.7%). Although hiking, leisure walking, and barbecue remained the most popular activities during visits over this time, the percentage of users who hiked increased nearly four-fold (12.6% in 1982-1991 to 47.0% in 2018) while the popularity of barbecue dwindled (40.6% in 1982-1991 and 11.0% in 2018). This suggests that Hong Kong people have been switching from more sedentary activities to more active ones when visiting country parks.
Group activities became a more popular reason for visiting country parks in 2018 (28.3%) than in 1982-1991 (8.0%), and the lack of companionship is a growing concern among non-users in 2018 (18.5%) than in 1982-1991 (4.5%). The survey results reflected that Hong Kong citizens are increasingly using country parks as a natural green environment for hiking, where the average hike would fulfill the WHO’s recommended level of weekly physical activities.
The study gives an updated overview of country park usage in Hong Kong since 1991. The research team is also among the first to investigate the relationships between patterns of country park visits and health, happiness, and family harmony. TrailWatch, the project partner, is focused on promoting nature conservation and hiking in Hong Kong. The Trailblazer Project team expects that the study would provide useful data for the government when developing relevant policies on country parks, including management, facilities and public education.
The study was led by Dr Felix Cheung, Research Assistant Professor, and Dr Michael Ni, Clinical Assistant Professor and Programme Director of the FAMILY Cohort in the School of Public Health at HKUMed. The ‘Trailblazer Project’ is exclusively supported by WYNG Foundation. The study was a collaboration between the FAMILY Cohort of the School of Public Health, the LKS Faculty of Medicine at The University of Hong Kong (HKUMed) and the TrailWatch project of WYNG Foundation.
The full report can be downloaded from https://sph.hku.hk/project/the-trailblazer/CountryParksX05_6Web.pdf
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