The Young Reporter

Around 1,000 demonstrators composed mostly of students boycotted classes this Friday in protest against insufficient government policies to combat climate change as part of a global environmentalist movement. The students handed a letter to representatives of the Environment Bureau and of the Chief Executive, with demanding more renewable energy and establishing youth representatives within the Steering Committee on Climate Change in Hong Kong as the main focus. "Hong Kong accounts for so much of the carbon dioxide emissions," said Emily Tarr, a 17 year-old student of Southern Island School who is one of the three organisers of the local Climate Change Strike. "We can see climate change occurring here due to the catastrophical typhoons and the sea levels rising and also the increasing number of hot days, and that is very scary." Hong Kong is among the more than 100 countries whose youths joined in to set March 15th as a global student strike day. Ms. Tarr gave credit to Greta Thunberg — a 16 year-old student from Sweden who spent many Fridays sitting in front of the government building to demand climate change actions from the government and large corporations — for being their inspiration. Initiated by Ms. Thunberg, the movement called #FridaysForFuture has been spread to Finland, Britain, United States and across the world. "One of the main things we want is renewable energy, because Hong Kong only has 1% of renewable energy. We want that to happen now, as soon as possible!" said Ms. Tarr. Shouting slogans like "be the solution, not the pollution" and "the seas are rising, so are we", the students marched to the Government Central Offices in Admiralty from Chater Garden. "Adults always think that children and teenagers don't care about politics and know nothing about it, but the fact that we children …

Zosha Piotrowski, a resident in Clearwater Bay area, said it was scary to see packs of wild boars by the rubbish bins when she was walking her dogs at night. "The wild boars knock down the bins and rummage for food, and there has been more and more of them in recent months," she added. According to the written reply from Secretary of the Environment, Wong Kam-sing, to Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee, current legislative councillor from the geographical constituency, in early January, the number of the wild boars reached 738 in 2017, more than double what it was in 2013. Back in the 1970s, teams of civilian volunteers were granted arms licenses and special permits by the police and the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department (AFCD) in order to hunt the boars, Mr. Wong said in a statement. Around 40 to 60 animals were caught each year. But in early 2017, the government suspended the hunting teams after reviewing their strategies for quantity control and relaunched the Pilot Capture and Contraception/Relocation Programme (Pilot CCRP), a two-year wild boar contraception project which successfully sterilised 54 wild boars by December 2018. Jeremy Young Chit-on, a district councillor for Central and Western District who wants the government to restart the hunting team, said contraception injections are ineffective because it is difficult to administer. The anaesthetic in the contraceptive vaccines, takes at least five to twenty minutes to take effect after injection. This gives the boars time to try to escape and become aggressive during the operation, a Legislative Council panel discussion summary released in late January stated.   Wild boars may become aggressive and attack humans when provoked or threatened, it quoted from the AFCD. On account of operational need and safety, the AFCD has to deploy 12 to 15 staff to capture …