The presumption is that they believe the zoning laws will be changed to allow residential development. Conservationists fear the real-estate industry may already have driven in the thin end of the wedge. In December, developers won a legal tussle to allow building of luxury flats and a golf course just three kilometers from the Mai Po wetlands, a world-class nature site. So the lobbying goes on. Members of the new SAR legislature can also expect to be wooed.
Activists find persuading decisionmakers more rewarding than trying to mobilize mass support.
Most people suffer from the borrowed place, borrowed time syndrome,'' says David Melville, the WWF director. That is not to say that the groups have given up trying to change public attitudes. FoE, for example, has run a successful pilot scheme persuading residents of a housing estate to recycle garbage. They may stage the occasional demonstration, but these civilized greens believe they have gone beyond waving placards. The FoE, which sees itself as a watchdog, prefers to fight its battles in the courts and through representations to the authorities.