Limited gains

Over the past ten years, there have been significant changes in public attitudes to environmental quality issues in Hong Kong. Previously, the declining quality of the local environment attracted very little public attention and it was left to government to take the lead in initiating regulations and controls to mitigate the territory's increasingly serious pollution problems. During the 1980s the public became more aware of the health and amenity impacts of pollution and by the early 1990s the environment was firmly established as a major issue of public concern. This book deals with the emergence of community-based environmental protection initiatives in Hong Kong, particularly in low income areas, and describes their successes and their failures.