Rear Window | Coloane redux

Severo Portela

MSAR government has always been confident to be on the side of those who pledge to protect Coloane as a nature safe haven, as an ecological reserve – or with whatever exaggeration we dare to dress the already spoiled big island. But that does not matter. Of course we are not referring to a pristine oasis, we are talking about Macau’s last green window, and yes, Coloane is under siege.
Whenever officials, businessmen and urban addicts smooth talk about the need to strike a balance between environment and development, builders are already on the beach. But this time, for a change, 10 NGOs are also wired to Save Colane from an obviously menacing 100-metre tall residential project planned for the top of Coloane Hill.
Even though the approval of Sio Tak Hong project seems to be in a bureaucratic limbo similar to that one made célèbre by a well-known idiot of the non-denial denial, the NGOs launched an open petition and some action to promote awareness among Macau residents about the perversity of the project, while alerting to the risks of what Macau Green Student Union Joey Chan calls the chain effect. If this one residential project goes ahead, so muddled up with an unknown rationale, non-binding EIAs, non-approval approval, one has to fear 100-metre towers would pop-pop in the other mountains (hills), enough to grow another Taipa.
Before we can describe it as a chain effect, there is the preliminary strategy to induce further developments. There is, or there was, a non-written understanding that Coloane would be spared by the casino industry. So much so that now the second wave of the Cotai development is not roaring as before the squeeze of the new normal. However… uber luxury 13 is allegedly demanding a few baccarat tables, over there in the atrium of the island. Can we presume another chain-effect situation further in the Coloane area?
Macau Civic Power Agnes Lam, usually an assertive but composed voice on public issues, took the outrage and assumed anger: we people in Macau are not just living here, it is not just a place to sleep and go to work, we are not pigs. We need somewhere to go.
Macau residents are doing their part… now it is the turn of lawmakers.
Chief Executive Chui Sai On will attend a plenary session on April 22 to answer the questions legislators intend to raise on government policy and social issues; no doubt the Coloane hill station project would qualify. It would be an inconvenient waste of political time if the house did not take this window to speak its mind on behalf of what lawmakers may think to be in the public interest. But we would bet that besides pro-democracy Ng Kwok Cheong, New Hope number two, Kwan Tsui Hang, and perhaps the Chan Meng Kam ticket, nobody would give the environment issue a word other than one of submission to economic development.
We do have to wait and in the meanwhile entertain a little guessing game about the issues lawmakers will ask CE about. On the nay column we would include the public consultation on the revision of the Legislative Assembly Electoral Law; on the aye column we would safely bet on the five measures contained in the “Words of the Chief Executive”. Either way, Chui Sai On wins.
Final note dedicated to the Panama Papers. Tax paradises are perfectly legal. On the illegal activity using tax havens we have two types: the corrupt ones and the evading ones. Capital flight is served by 85 airlines all around the world. Dedicated to the conspiracy theorists or naïve souls (same thing) we have the Vladimir Putin angle: an unknown source gave the Panama Papers to the Suddeutsch Zeitung; SZ gave it to a few selected papers; Goldman Sachs owns Suddeutsch Zeitung; Putin rests his case.