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Cat Nelson

In the early 1980s, coral carpeted the seabed under the Tolo Harbour in northeastern Hong Kong. Coverage reached as high as 70 to 80 per cent in some areas, comparable to what scientists now see in the city’s marine parks.
Within a few years, almost all of it was gone. “Not a lot of people actually know about this,” says Dr Apple Chui Pui-yi, assistant professor in the School of Life Sciences at Chinese University.
As nearby towns such as Sha Tin and Tai Po developed, pollution and sewage discharge poured into the semi-enclosed waters of the harbour. Coral coverage collapsed to less than 5 per cent. Scientists now describe it as Hong Kong’s first marine ecological disaster.

The government responded with the Tolo Harbour Action Plan in 1987 to treat the pollution and though the water quality gradually improved over time, the reef did not recover.
“After 20 years of improved water quality, the coral just never returned,” Chui says.
The disappearance of those reefs is what now drives her work. Chui runs a coral research lab at Chinese University and founded Coral Academy, an outreach initiative designed to connect scientific research with public understanding. If the science is about reefs, the mission is about people.
Chui’s own fascination with the ocean began long before she became a scientist. Her childhood weekends were spent exploring Hong Kong’s coastline with her family. Beaches in Sai Kung remain vivid in her memory: cobble shores where waves had polished stones smooth, fishing trips, early attempts at snorkelling.
“My love for the ocean started when I was very young,” she says. “My happiest childhood memories are of my family taking me to the beach every weekend.”
As she grew older, her curiosity deepened through watching documentaries.
“Whenever a documentary mentioned coral, there was always a magical moment – coral spawning,” she says. “Every time I saw it, I found it incredibly wondrous.”

In the late 2000s, during her postgraduate studies, Chui’s supervisor offered her a few marine research topics to choose from. One was coral spawning in Hong Kong. “I was really amazed,” she recalls. “We have corals in Hong Kong? And they spawn?”
It felt like it was meant to be. Chui has spent the years since studying coral reproduction and developing techniques to cultivate coral for restoration.
Her work challenges a common assumption about Hong Kong’s marine life. The city’s waters are often described as murky and marginal for coral growth, colder and more variable than the tropical seas usually associated with reefs.
“Hong Kong itself is not a very suitable place for coral growth,” Chui says.
And yet coral persists. That resilience is precisely what makes it scientifically interesting.
“Because of the years of exposure to a suboptimal environment, our corals might be more resilient to stressors,” she says. Where coral abroad often dies after bleaching, in Hong Kong most coral recovers.

In fact, local waters host an unexpectedly diverse coral community. There are 84 species of reef-building coral in Hong Kong waters, more than in the Caribbean.
Worldwide there are about 900 species of reef-building coral, says Chui. “If you protect Hong Kong, you are actually protecting a tenth of the global coral species.”
Still, history has shown, resilience alone cannot rebuild a lost reef. The collapse in Tolo Harbour left an ecological blank space that did not recover on its own, even after pollution controls improved conditions. That realisation prompted Chui’s team to attempt something not extensively tried in Hong Kong: coral restoration.
Using a technique known as sexual propagation, researchers collect coral eggs and sperm during spawning events, fertilise them in the laboratory and rear the larvae into juvenile coral. Once the colonies grow large enough to survive, they are transplanted back into the sea.
The results have surprised even the scientists. Survival rates for coral released into the sea in Tolo Harbour reached around 90 per cent – unusually high by global standards. After several years in the sea, some of the transplanted coral has begun spawning naturally, says Chui, completing a life cycle.

This matters not just as proof that restoration can work, but because coral does not exist in isolation. Its structures form habitats that attract other species.
“Butterflyfish are an indicator species for corals,” Chui says. “Our restoration efforts have now brought some butterflyfish back and, occasionally, a seahorse hooks onto our coral.”
In short, the reef is beginning to function again.
But if the scientific breakthroughs are measured under water, Chui is equally focused on what happens on land. Coral Academy was created to address the fact that most Hongkongers will never see a reef.
Since launching in 2018, the programme has reached more than 60 schools and about 30,000 students and teachers around the city. It encompasses eco-tours to marine parks, laboratory visits and citizen-science initiatives that invite divers and volunteers to help monitor coral health.
Chui’s goal is reaching preservation through education, exposure and familiarity. “People often find it difficult to imagine what happens under water,” she says.

One of the programme’s flagship initiatives brings coral directly into classrooms. Participating schools receive tanks where students help care for coral colonies over the course of a year before they are returned to the ocean as part of restoration work.
“Normal students wouldn’t come into contact with corals, but suddenly there’s a tank of corals in their school,” says Chui. “The whole thing is very personal; they see it every day.”
The work is also expanding. Chui’s lab is building a coral nursery and education centre at the university, supported in part by the Rolex Perpetual Planet Initiative. The facility will allow the team to scale up its coral breeding programme and grow its community engagement to promote awareness and conservation of coral ecosystems.
The long-term goal is simple: build a generation that sees Hong Kong’s marine world as part of its identity.


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Doing Good

The Hong Kong scientist trying to revive the city’s coral reefs

Apple Chui, assistant professor in the School of Life Sciences at Chinese University. Photo: courtesy of Coral Academy

Hong Kong’s Coral Academy takes students on a field trip. Photo: courtesy Coral Academy

Once the coral grows large enough to survive in the lab, it is transplanted back into the sea. Photo: courtesy Coral Academy

A tank of juvenile specimens at the Coral Academy. Photo: courtesy Coral Academy

Apple Chui Pui-yi, assistant professor in the School of Life Sciences at Chinese University, has been fascinated with coral from a young age. Photo: courtesy Coral Academy

Through coral restoration, transplanted corals like these can spawn naturally in the sea and complete a life cycle. Photo: courtesy Coral Academy

A Hong Kong head of fauna conservation on ecology in the region

Dr Gary Ades speaks on animal conservation and ecology in Hong Kong. Photo: Jocelyn Tam

 A young Gary Ades (centre front) with his mother and his siblings in Bahrain, in 1964. Photo: courtesy Gary Ades

Gary Ades’ father, Jim Ades (right), holding a grass owl, while talking to orchid expert Gloria Barretto (left) and Sir Horace Kadoorie (In wheelchair), outside his office in Shek Kong, Hong Kong, in 1993. Photo: courtesy Gary Ades

Gary Ades with a little bittern he rescued in Cyprus, in 1979. Photo: courtesy Gary Ades

Gary Ades holding a reptile at the Kadoorie Farm and Botanic Garden Rescue Centre. Photo: courtesy Gary Ades

Ades conducts bat research in a cave in Hong Kong in 1991. Photo: courtesy Gary Ades

For this father and daughter duo, philanthropy is a form of family bonding

Naveen Sadhwani – who also goes by Nick – and his 23-year-old daughter Bianca run a charity dedicated to feeding the homeless and underprivileged in Hong Kong. Photo: Alexander Mak

The Sadhwanis and volunteers distribute food and drinks in Tsim Sha Tsui. Photo: Alexander Mak

Bianca Sadhwani in Tsim Sha Tsui doing her charity work. Photo: Alexander Mak

Volunteers from the Hanuman Charity prepare food and drinks for distribution. Photo: Alexander Mak

A Hanuman Charity recipient in Tsim Sha Tsui. Photo: Alexander Mak

A Hanuman Charity recipient tucks into a meal provided by the volunteers in Tsim Sha Tsui, Hong Kong. Photo: Alexander Mak

Naveen Sadhwani, together with his daughter Bianca and volunteers from Hanuman Charity, distributes food and drinks to the needy. Photo: Alexander Mak

The Hanuman Charity team pose for a picture at a fundraising event. Photo: courtesy Hanuman Charity

How mahjong keeps finding new tables – one tile at a time

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Millennials and Gen Z across the Asian diaspora are learning to play mahjong. Photo: Andria Lo/Mahjong: House Rules from Across the Asian Diaspora

Mahjong fans play a game with outsize tiles in Toronto, Canada. Photo: Gabriel Li

Mahjong has persisted due to its adaptability, according to author Nicole Wong. Photo: Andria Lo/Mahjong: House Rules from Across the Asian Diaspora

Nicole Wong, author of Mahjong: House Rules from Across the Asian Diaspora. Photo: Andria Lo

Mahjong: House Rules from Across the Asian Diaspora, by Nicole Wong. Photo: courtesy Nicole Wong

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Tiles from Karen Aruba Art’s Mahjong Wanderlust series. Photo: courtesy Karen Aruba Art

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Cheung hand-carves a tile at Karen Aruba Art. Photo: Jessica Wong

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A zine in progress by singer-songwriter Cheryl Chow, aka Cehryl. Photo: Jocelyn Tam

Cehryl Chow, pictured in Sheung Wan, Hong Kong, says she likes the DIY ethic of zines. Photo: Jocelyn Tam

Maria Nemy Lou Rocio, with Ingat, an anthology of work by migrant domestic workers that she co-published with Small Tune Press, pictured in Tsuen Wan, Hong Kong. Photo: Alexander Mak

Beatrix Pang and Forrest Lau of Zine Coop, organiser of the Zine Yo! Fest, in Tsim Sha Tsui, Hong Kong. Photo: Alexander Mak

Visitors browse around the exhibition area at Zine Yo! Fest, which was held at Heath, in Chungking Mansions, Tsim Sha Tsui, Hong Kong. Photo: Alexander Mak

Works by local creatives on display at Zine Yo! Fest, which also included workshops on zine making. Photo: Alexander Mak

Artist and curator Judith Siu (centre) with customers at her stall at the Zine Yo! Fest in Tsim Sha Tsui, Hong Kong. Photo: Alexander Mak

One of Cehryl’s zines in the making. Photo: Jocelyn Tam

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Action from a charity horse race in Sumba, Indonesia. Photo: Charukesi Ramadurai

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Nina Rambu Rauna is Nihi’s custodian of Sumbanese culture. Photo: Charukesi Ramadurai

A woman weaves traditional fabrics in Sumba, Indonesia. Photo: Charukesi Ramadurai

The high-roofed huts of a traditional Sumbanese village. Photo: Charukesi Ramadurai

Cap Karoso, a hotel with all straight lines and modern accents. Photo: Charukesi Ramadurai

Yoel Zatreo Lalo, a graduate of the Sumba Hospitality Foundation. Photo: Charukesi Ramadurai

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One of the competitors in the charity horse race. Photo: Charukesi Ramadurai

PostMag

Passions

Decades after pollution devastated Tolo Harbour’s reefs, Chinese University’s Coral Academy is reviving their ecosystems


Decades after pollution devastated Tolo Harbour’s reefs, Chinese University’s Coral Academy is reviving their ecosystems.


The Hong Kong scientist trying to revive the city’s coral reefs

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Decades after pollution devastated Tolo Harbour’s reefs, Chinese University’s Coral Academy is reviving their ecosystems

Decades after pollution devastated Tolo Harbour’s reefs, Chinese University’s Coral Academy is reviving their ecosystems