Born into a family of Tuen Mun fishermen, Fok Ka-fai, now 40, entered the trade at the age of 12, just weeks shy of completing primary school.
I am proud to say that I have only had to work for someone for just three days in my life, said Fok, referring to his brief stint as driver a cement mixing truck. My life has always been at sea.
A vice-chairman of the Hong Kong and Kowloon Fishermen Association, Fok is one of the few senior trade representatives that still actively heads out to sea to catch fish. For that reason, Fok has had a front row seat to the ups and downs of an industry that has found itself at a critical junction. From the way things look, his view of it is grim.
Hong Kong fisheries scientists and conservation group hope the city can learn from the Philippines in protecting and recovering depleting fisheries. Part of this will be for fishermen too.
Like the island province of Palawan, local Hong Kong fishing stocks have declined after decades of overfishing, leaving species such as the croaker, prized for its swim bladder’s purported medicinal properties, critically endangered.
From of a high of about 20,000 fishing boats as early as the 1960s, the number has dropped to about 4,000, accelerated by a 2013 ban on trawling, ageing fishermen and a lack of interest in the trade among the younger generation.
The average crew size of a fishing boat has shrunk from seven or eight per boat to just two. Additional deckhands are often hired from the mainland. Coastal fish stocks have been declining in size and quantity as a result of decades of overfishing, land reclamation and deteriorating water quality.
Hong Kong Fishermen Consortium chairman Cheung Siu-keung admits that fishermen, up until recent years, did not hold the concept of sustainability in high regard but now recognise that there is an urgent need to reduce catch volumes. Natural resources are finite, Cheung says.
Making a living from the seas is no longer as easy as it once was. It was partly the reason why Fok, like many others, had considered making a foray into another seaborne trade tourism.
Overseas examples such as in Palawan have demonstrated that fishermen can take charge and ownership of an MPA, she said. It proves fishermen can learn how better conservation of marine resources are able to benefit from them.
But government red tape and inflexible policies don’t make any such transition easy. Permits for dual-use vessels is the main one, said Cheung.
In Hong Kong, we can’t ferry passengers on fishing boats and even if you wanted to change to recreational fishing, you wouldn’t meet the government’s strict safety standards.
We don’t know what we can install or modify to make fishing boats legal and it is very expensive to convert them.
The Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department say they are doing all they can.
In collaboration with local fishermen and the private sector, the AFCD launched a pilot scheme to promote fisheries-related eco-tourism business in Hong Kong, helping struggling fishermen to acquire knowledge in the trade and running such a business.
From 2010 to 2014, 430 fishermen have received such training and some 17,600 members of the public have joined the tours organised under the pilot scheme, one spokesman said.
On top of that, the HK$500 million Sustainable Fisheries Development Fund was established last year to provide financial assistance to fishermen looking to make a change into areas such as aquaculture, recreational fishing and promotion of fisheries culture and heritage.
Fok, a former trawler himself joined an AFCD’s pilot programme to teach trawlers how they could make a living from eco-tours in 2013. With the government subsidy he worked with HK Traveler to charter a surf and turf eco-tour.
But he eventually he scrapped the venture after a year because it was not commercially viable and could not find a business partner.
There’s just no guarantee of a sustainable or stable income, not to mention the ups and downs of the tourist season. Fok said.
Most fishermen say they would rather work for a living or get a job somewhere like construction. It’s impossible to make money as a full time tour guide.
Sai Kung Fishermen’s Association chairman Cheng King-man has had a different experience.
Unlike most fishermen who have not been able to or are reluctant to switch trades from fisheries into tourism, Cheng was able to capitalize on the first mover advantage in the late 1980s. And like most of his fellow seafarers, he is a strong supporter of establishing more marine protected areas.
He knew that it was only a matter of time before the territory’s fisheries would go into decline.
Fishing families were big, we’re talking about eight or 10 people in one household back in the day, said Cheng. I foresaw that the sea’s resources just couldn’t sustain families of that size anymore.
In 1987, Cheng sold his fishing boat. With an investment of HK$330,000, he had a new boat fitted for tourism. He later invested in two speedboats. He’s been making a decent and stable living since.
Cheng says he can now charge up to HK$6,000 for a standard junk party and on the side, good revenue from taking wakeboarders out to sea on his speedboats from Sai Kung.
As a villager from Leung Shuen Wan, he has even carved out a niche ferrying tourists to check out rock formations at the nearby Geopark. Fishermen don’t know how much they can earn these days. You spend a lot of money on fuel and ice with no guarantee of a good catch, he said. You can be rich in the morning and dirt poor by night.
2015 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd.