Green Ambassador Scheme
The department runs a Green Ambassador (GA) Scheme under which District Council (DC) members are invited to serve as GAs and help promote community involvement in the surveillance of trees. By March 2016, over 430 prominent citizens had joined the scheme.
Hong Kong Flower Show 2016
The Hong Kong Flower Show was held at Victoria Park from March 11 to 20, 2016. The show, which this year gave pride of place to the Antirrhinum majus genus of Antirrhinum, attracted over 530 000 visitors.
The Flower Show had over 350 000 flowering plants on display, including 60 000 pots of Antirrhinum majus along with many other exotic flowers and plants from all over the world. The show also featured magnificent floral art displays by horticultural groups from Hong Kong, the Mainland and overseas. Participants included over 220 horticultural organisations, private firms and government departments from Hong Kong and the Mainland, Australia, France, Germany, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Pakistan, the Philippines, Estonia, Singapore, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom.
In addition to attractions such as landscape designs, flower arrangements, and displays of potted plants and bonsai, the show delivered a wide range of educational and entertainment programmes. These included horticultural talks, flower arrangement demonstrations, musical performances, cultural presentations, exhibits, drawing and photo competitions, greening activity workshops, green promotional stalls, and guided tours. All were designed to generate interest in horticulture and the greening of Hong Kong.
Besides accepting cash payment for admission, we continued to accept Octopus payments to reduce queuing time.
Green HK Campaign
Under the department's community greening programme, around 180 green promotional and outreach activities were held during the year, with over 40 000 people taking part.
Some 6 200 Green Volunteers from the 18 districts were recruited under the Green Volunteer Scheme to participate in voluntary services of greening activities. These volunteers also served as stewards at various green promotional activities. In 2015-16, around 470 greening activities were organised for the Green Volunteers.
The Community Garden Programme, which covers all 18 districts, encourages members of the public to participate in community-level greening activities and to adopt green practices in their daily lives. The programme is also designed to raise public awareness of environmental protection issues through gardening activities. The 18 districts now set up 23 community gardens. In 2015-16, 54 gardening courses were organised for more than 11 000 participants.
The department continued to work with the DCs and local communities to organise Community Planting Days throughout the year. In 19 planting days, involving over 5 000 participants, 31 trees and 28 558 shrubs were planted.
The Greening School Subsidy Programme, conducted during the year as part of a school greening programme, provided subsidies of $4.6 million to 877 schools and kindergartens. The money is used to help make school campuses greener and to provide green educational activities for students, with the assistance of part-time instructors. All the greening projects were assessed, and the winning schools received a Greening School Project Award. Around 361 200 students were given pots of seedlings to nurture at home or at school under the 'One Person, One Flower' Scheme, which develops interest in greening by encouraging young people to grow their own plants.
