Water Margin- Hong Kong’s Link to the Sea

by Guy Nowell, Sail-World Asia on 2 Nov 2012 'An appreciation of Hong Kong’s maritime resources in all aspects ranging from heritage, culture and recreation, to the breathtaking natural geography and wildlife.'

It’s a big subject, if the truth be known, and if you lay hands on this book be prepared to be swept up into a rich delight of history, geography and photography, peppered with skulduggery, industry, personalities and sports, and all stirred together into a fabulous oriental bouillabaisse. Hong Kong is what it is by virtue of its position in the ‘water margin’ (haijiang) of China, and of course sustained by the 'water margin' that surrounds it.

Specifically, the book covers History, Culture, Water Sport, Underwater, Wildlife, and the Coastline, all of them positive experiences for the most part – the debt that we owe to our island environment. Robin Moyer’s glorious photo essay, ‘Water Margin: A Photographer’s Journey’, is worth a book in itself, but it is amply supported throughout the volume by spectacular images both contemporary and historical.

And then we get to the ‘Challenges’. An inundation of plastic. Waterborne litter. Sewage pumped into Victoria Harbour. Storm drains. Degraded water quality. Reclamation. How on earth, one is moved to ask, did it come to this? The rape of a natural resource and an environment that has given so much to Hong Kong and received so little care in return.

Doug Woodring’s Ocean Recovery Alliance, the Plastic Disclosure Project, the ‘neighbourhood watch’ Global Alert, and Project Kaisei are covered here – initiatives to raise awareness of the appalling state of the coastal and pelagic waters of our planet. Expanding the Hong Kong problem onto a global canvas, so to speak.

If you can spare a few dollars you need to put this book on your shelf. It will delight, amaze and horrify you by turns, and it will undoubtedly improve your understanding of the environment that surrounds Hong Kong and increase your awareness of the dependency of our modern world on the oceans that support us and which we are trying so hard to kill.

Buy it. HK$450. Enjoy the stories and photos, absorb the information, and make a donation to Ocean Recovery Alliance in the process.

'Water Margin: Hong Kong’s Link to the Sea' is by Matthew Flynn and Ocean Recovery Alliance, with contributions from Dr Stephen Davies, Ed Stokes, Prof Joseph Bosco, Prof Sidney Chung, Prof Dick Irving, Dr Andy Cornish, Stan Shea, Dr Allen To, Robin Moyer, Walter Chu, Doug Woodring, Prof Joseph Hun-wei Lee, WWF Hong Kong and Prof Yvonne Sadovy.

For further information please contact: watermargin@flynnbooks.com

'Water Margin: Hong Kong’s Link to the Sea' is sponsored by:
Anglo-Eastern Group
Clarkson Asia
Fairmont and Magsaysay
KC Maritime
OOCL
Pacific Basin
Roxy
TCC Group
Tiger Group
Valles Steamship
and Robert YC Ho