Scholar calls for laws and education on environmental protection

Eric Tsang

Professor Eric Tsang from the Hong Kong Institute of Education believes that Macau should draft and implement an Environmental Impact Assessment Ordinance, while reinforcing education on environmental issues. Tsang was speaking to reporters on the sidelines of a public lecture held yesterday at the University of Saint Joseph (USJ).
Alongside USJ professor Emilie Tran, who’s coordinating the Government Studies Program, Mr Tsang presented some of the findings of a survey on public environmental consciousness in Macau, after having conducted a similar study in Hong Kong. The study was headed by USJ and sponsored by the Macao Foundation.
The survey was carried out between July and August this year by phone interviews to Macau residents aged 15 and above.
Mr Tsang revealed that they found similarities in environmental behavior and attitude between residents of Hong Kong and Macau.
“We cannot say that Macau’s citizens level of environmental consciousness is high, because [our survey] does not provide an absolute scale. [We found] that the people of Macau are on average pro-environmental, the same that we concluded regarding Hong Kong,” he said, adding that this means citizens “are working in favor of the environment.”
A change in the city’s environmental mindset as well as improvements to its environment can only be reached through policies, laws and education, the scholar reiterated. “Education is important but it will only work in the long-term. We need short-term strategies, specific policies, laws and regulations,” he stressed.
According to the scholar, “an eminent [regulation] needed is the Environmental Impact Assessment Ordinance,” which was implemented in Hong Kong in 1998.
The neighboring SAR’s ordinance was drafted and enforced “to avoid, minimize and control the adverse impact on the environment of designated projects through the application of the environmental impact assessment process and the environmental permit system,” according to its website.
Professor Eric Tsang, who is currently associate director of UNESCO-UNEVOC (International Center for Technical and Vocational Education and Training) in the Hong Kong center, said that – through the survey – they’ve also reached the conclusion that the majority of people interviewed are “believers,” meaning that “they have a pro-environmental attitude and they will show it, doing what they have promised to do [in favor of the environment.]”
The researchers asked Macau residents a set of questions on their environmental knowledge, attitude, pro-environmental behavior, methods of environmental education and demographic features, receiving 1,005 successful responses to their questionnaire.
Two thirds of the respondents (66.27 percent) believed that knew “a fair amount” of information about environmental issues. Over half of the residents interviewed said that they know “a lot more” when compared to ten years ago. The study also shows that younger respondents, those with higher educational backgrounds or people with higher monthly incomes have more knowledge of environmental issues.
According to the survey, the environmental attitude of Macau residents is comparable to that of fellow citizens in developed countries and slightly higher than that of nationals from developing countries.
Moreover, a majority of the respondents (80.8 percent) hinted that any behavioral changes they might make to protect the environment would need to fit in with their lifestyle.
48.06 percent of respondents regard housing as the most pressing issue in Macau, which the government should tackle first, followed by education and environment and pollution (13.63 percent). Among environmental issues, 56.49 of respondents believe that the government should first tackle air pollution problems, followed by municipal solid waste, recycling (14.96 percent) and energy use, fuel efficiency and renewable energy (7.11 percent).
The majority of interviewed citizens indicated that they furthered their knowledge of environmental issues through TV (53.9 percent), school (52.9 percent) and the Internet (49 percent).
The study’s authors believe that the Internet will play “a significant role in the promotion of environmental protection,” as younger generations are resorting to these platforms to further their knowledge and exchange information. “Web-based environmental education programs such as online games and mobile apps can be developed to disseminate pro-environmental messages to a larger audience,” the scholars argued.