Dr. Billy Hau (Principal Lecturer and Programme Director, MSc in Environmental Management,
School of Biological Sciences)
B.Sc., M.Sc. (Environmental Management), Ph.D. HKU

Fields of interest
Ecological restoration of degraded tropical landscape, environmental impact assessment, biodiversity assessment.

I was born and brought up in a remote and rural village in the New Territories of Hong Kong. My childhood memories were full of wildlife. I had tortured many frogs and toads; I had brutally killed a lot of snakes (small ones though); I had stolen and eaten countless number of eggs of Spotted Dove, White-breasted Waterhen and bulbul; and I had destroyed almost every wasp hive I came across. It may be because I had done so many bad things to wildlife in my childhood that I now have to pay back by spending the rest my life to protect them.

I started as a conservationist in the World Wide Fund for Nature Hong Kong (WWF HK) in 1991 focusing on the impact of urban development on Hong Kong's natural environment. I then worked in the Kadoorie Farm and Botanic Garden between 1998 and 2001 on a native tree project and a South China biodiversity conservation project (Please visit www.kfbg.org for the details of these 2 projects).

I acquired all of my university degrees from HKU and coming back as a teaching staff is really amazing. At the beginning, I found it hard to believe that I had become an academic. It was because I still strongly felt that I was a conservationist. Well, there should be no contradiction between the two and now I am putting conservation as my ultimate goal both in teaching and research.

My primary research interest is forest restoration. I should like to determine the most cost-effective strategy to restore the extensive degraded hillside habitats in Hong Kong and South China. I am currently planning experiments on direct seeding, selecting framework tree species for afforestation and accelerating natural reforestation. As for teaching, my goal is to introduce more China biodiversity elements in the undergraduate programme, hoping that this will raise the students' interest in biodiversity conservation. Both Hong Kong and mainland China need more new blood in the conservation field.