Life on the Lake: Portraits of a Pre-City

From Beijing railway station, I head 80 minutes south of China’s bustling capital, to a tranquil area in the sleepy province of Hebei.

The bullet-train network in Northern China is already vast, and growing rapidly by the day, but as I vacate the train onto the platform I find myself alone in an eerily clean and quiet station. I follow the multi-lingual signs for the exit. There are a few people hovering around the departure lounge, but nothing like the swarms of commuters I saw in Beijing. I walk outside, and turn to photograph the large red Mandarin symbols that mark the entrance. This is Baiyangdian.

I first read about this peculiar place in an article by ‘The Economist’ back in 2008. The article focused on China’s water-diversion schemes, and the drought risks that face the region. Ten years on, and the country is still battling with its water-shortage crisis, but ambitious plans are now underway to redress the balance and cultivate ‘natural’ water supplies. One of the most notable mega-projects underway, ‘The South–North Water Transfer Project’, aims to channel 44.8 billion cubic meters of fresh water a year, from the Yangtze River in to the rapidly developing North. The government has also funded a colassal-scale weather modification program called ‘Sky River’, which is a cloud-seeding initiative that aims to artificially induce rainfall, by pumping silver iodide particles into the atmosphere. Tens of thousands of fuel-burning chambers are being installed across the Tibetan Mountains to release these particles and promote rainfall. And if the project proves to be a success, the agricultural industry in the Tibetan Plateau will flourish, and cloud seeding chambers will undoubtedly be rolled out across the arid Northern Plain. But of course, these controversial projects will have a butterfly-effect on the natural ecologies that are being unconsciously reshaped as a result. And as industrial development takes priority over the stability of complex ecosystems - for every square mile of cultivated land that receives more annual rainfall, there is a square mile elsewhere that will suffer a loss of rainfall as a result.

However, the Communist Party of China have recently unveiled plans for the future industrial development of the country, which appear (at least in concept), to be much more focused on wildlife cultivation and environmental stability. The “2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development”, established by the United Nations, will see China develop three key sustainable ‘zones’ that will act as city-scale showrooms. Each ‘zone’ (or city) will focus on the integration of innovative and sustainable technology. The President has approved Shenzhen, Guilin, and Taiyuan - as the three national showrooms. And funding will be channelled into China’s booming technology companies to develop new infrastructural blueprints. Each ‘zone’ will centre around a different environmental issue. In Shenzhen, technology companies will focus on sewage treatment, ecological restoration, and artificial intelligence to solve issues from resource management to pollution. In Guilin, the issue of desertification will be explored and companies will be promoted to develop modular systems that can be scaled and replicated by other regions that are facing the threat of encroaching deserts. And in Taiyuan, alternative solutions to air and water pollution will be explored. But as you may have noticed, Baiyangdian is not part of this list of showrooms. So why am I here?

Back in 2010, the Chinese government published plans to unveil its first ever ‘eco-city’, at the launch of the Shanghai World Expo. ARUP, an Internationally-renowned design and engineering company, were assigned with developing on the elusive wetlands of Dongtan, on Chongming Island (Shanghai). The area was, and still is, an important migration route for waterfowl in the Asia-Pacific region. So it was imperative that ARUP should develop the city with minimal disruption to the local ecosystem. The new city was marketed as a window into China’s green future. A showroom of sustainable urbanism. The continued migration of waterfowl would provide an objective barometer of success.

The city was expected to house 25,000 citizens by the launch of the Expo - but no houses were ever built. Instead, the office that had been allocated to the project closed down, and all promotion of the project was deleted from the Expo’s website. Now, with no-one managing the construction of the project, it is assumed that ARUP’s masterplan had been discarded, and the entire project was a green-marketing ruse.

Almost ten years on, and governmental greenwashing and pseudo-environmentalism has become all too common. The ghost of Dongtan looms over President Xi Jinping’s new sustainable ‘zones’ - which is precisely why Baiyangdian will provide a more accurate barometer of China’s true greening efforts over the next decade. Baiyangdian, like Dongtan, has recently been publically marked as a key site for ‘sustainable’ development. Taking inspiration from the successful Shanghai-Suzhou-Hangzhou commuter triangle, Xi Jinping is now looking to replicate a clustered network of cities around the country’s capital. The aim is to draw off non-essential commercial and industrial activity from Beijing, in order to ease conjestion and urban sprawl. Beijing will remain the administrative centre of the country; with highly-productive industrial mega-cities just a short commute away.

Unlike sprawling mega-cities like Tokyo and New York City that have developed densely populated boroughs over decades - China’s commuter-city-cluster model relies on a highly efficient railway network that warps perceptions of space and commutable time. The aim is to connect smaller cities within a two-hour region into one highly dispersed mega-city. The model has already been established with the highly-productive Yangzi River Delta, centred on Shanghai. And also the Pearl River Delta, centred on Shenzhen and Hong Kong. But the colossal Jingjinji Metropolitan Region, which is centred on Beijing, is yet to be fully realised. The region is largely composed of the the port city of Tianjin, capital city of Beijing, and the wider rural area of Hebei. And with Baiyangdian strategically located in the rural province of Hebei, next to the largest freshwater lake in North China - it is no surprise that the CPC plan to unify the region by developing a new mega-city here. The development is known as the ‘Xiongan New Area’, and is being marketed as a model for future sustainable urbanism. Like the ghost of Dongtan, the new city reguires careful planning to sustain the site’s local wetland ecosystem. But unlike Dongtan - construction has already begun.

Lake Baiyangdian will be the ‘green’ centerpiece of the ‘Xiong’an New Area’, as the skyscrapers rise up from the perimeter of the wetlands. The high-speed railway line already connects Beijing to this pre-city; so my experience of the place is uniquely fleeting - and I feel like I am witnessing the first portrait of a landscape-sized tryptic.

Xiong’an New Area - 雄安新区

LIFE ON THE LAKE

After taking a short, but bumpy, journey from Baiyangdian station to the freshwater lake - I befriend a local family who take me to a popular boat docking area. A few local villagers are congregated around a wooden hut near a cluster of boats, so I pull out my mobile translation app and ask an elderly gentleman if he can show me around the lake. The villagers are animated by the fact that I want to see their stilted homes, and they offer lotus seeds and politely ask for photographs. I buy some seeds for the journey, and the elderly gentleman requests 15 yuan (€1.86) before we set off together in his small wooden fishing boat. We weave through the reeds into a wonderfully complex mosaic of over one hundred shallow freshwater lakes, thirty-nine villages, and vast fields of lotus flowers. I can feel the slow pace of life here as we drift along the water. He points out a cluster of houses and we moor up outside for a rest.

Unsurprisingly, the man knows everyone that we come into contact with. He takes me to a hut where three boys are firing rounds at targets in a shooting range, and they ask if I like shooting. I confess that I am a complete novice, and make an excuse to move on. We return to the boat and I ask if the shooting spooks the local geese and cormorants. His response is brief but honest. Shì, shì...yes.

As we drift along the lotus fields, he explains (via my translation app) that he has noticed a change in the waters in recent years. He laments about the number of motorboats that have appeared as a result of a rise in eco-tourism; claiming that the boats startle the fish and pollute the water. We pass a notice-board that appears to be advertising dog-fighting, and I begin to wonder how resilient this rural community of villagers will be in the face of rapid urbanisation. As modern infrastructure develops and the number of urban residents grows ecotourism may well prove to be far more lucrative than fishing and reed collecting as a vocation. In her academic paper, ‘Variations in ecosystem service values in response to changes in environmental flows: A case study of Baiyangdian Lake, China (2011)’, Wei Yang notes that “the number of fish species in Baiyangdian Lake decreased to 18 in 2000, from 54 species in 1958...as a result of the homogenization of species that has resulted from industrialization of the fishery”.

I cannot help but wonder whether the fate of the villagers will follow that of the fish. Perhaps they will be homogenized into the urban landscape. Or manufactured and marketed into a green caricature of ‘sustainability’. Either way, their livelihoods will undoubtedly change along with the landscape. But the realities of change and the loss of unsustainable culture need not always be cast in a negative light. The prospect of developing this mega-city from the ground up provides a rare opportunity for architects and urban planners to experiment with the natural-cultural order of the urban terrain. And with President Xi playing a pivotal role in launching the development, and overseeing its economical impacts - the growth of Xiong’an could follow a similar trajectory to the rapid urbanisation of Shenzhen and Pudong, which were largely seen as former leader Deng Xiaoping’s greatest achievements in urban reformation. Baiyangdian may lose its agricultural heart, but it stands to be reincarnated as Xi’s urban legacy..

Written by Steven Hutt

Cast From Eden: The Fate of Hong Kong's Foreign Cockatoos

According to the IUCN Red List, the Cacatua sulphurea (better known as the Yellow Crested Cockatoo), is now Critically Endangered in the wild. There are approximately 1000-2,500 still living in Indonesia, but their numbers are falling every year. Their diet consists mainly of seeds, buds, fruits, nuts and herbaceous plants. And their traditional habitats comprise of shrubland areas and forests, which are increasingly under threat as a result of increased industrial farming, logging, and drought. So it is no surprise that the cockatoos are finding themselves homeless in the rapidly industrialising Indonesian forests.

But there is a little known haven for these birds that lies some 3000km from home - in the most unlikely place you might expect. Deep in the heart of Hong Kong’s bustling Central district, just 100 metres from the famous Lippo Towers - there is a growing population of expat cockatoos that are purportedly terrorizing the neighbourhood. Their numbers have increased so successfully, that these urbanites now account for 10% of their species’ entire global population (approx. 200). Their growing numbers may sound encouraging for their status on the IUCN Red List, but for local park managers and conservationists, they are being branded a menace to the ‘native’ ecology.

I travelled to Hong Kong Park, to see if I could catch a glimpse of these majestic urbanites - and sure enough, they were perched up high in the tree canopies, displaying their white plumage and squawking loudly. The park was littered wth disparaging signs relating to the birds, that claim they destroy the local flora, and steal natural resources. These claims have not been backed by any formal studies relating to invasive bird patterns - and there is a lack of legislation surrounding their removal, capture, monitoring, or indeed protection.

The Yellow-Crested Cockatoo’s current purgatorial status in Hong Kong is symbolic of the outmoded conservation tactics and static control models that are prevalent in the profession. The birds have been locally cast from the heavily curated ‘natural’ parks - despite showing their resilience in such a dense and hostile urban environment. Perhaps it is now time to question the grand narratives of conservation, and look towards progressive models of viability over nationality?

As I walked around Hong Kong Park, and through to the magnificent Edward Youde Aviary - the surreal reality of the situation became even more apparent. The aviary is built in the corner of the park over a natural valley, and sweeps majestically across the sky - carving through the landscape at ground level to form clear boundaries between ‘in’ and ‘out’ side. It is a giant 3,000m2 artificial enclosure, housing 80 species of exotic birds that are indigenous to Southeast Asia, Indonesia, and New Guinea. Inside the enclosure, visitors can walk across a twisting wooden bridge suspended above the trees, where information about the various species is printed on museal boards.

The aviary is an old-fashioned menagerie. A giant, beautiful bird cage. But just beyond its naturalised terrain and curved mesh walls, one of the world’s most vulnerable bird species is on display in one of the world’s densest concrete jungles. There are many lessons to be learnt from this menagerie typology, and not all are negative. The societal penchant for staging nature in purpose-built captivity is fading fast, as natural ‘entertainment’ turns to natural ‘education’. But many unplanned and uncurated forms of captivity still exist within (and beyond) the city. And while the aviary feeds a fantasy of exotica and ‘otherness’ through museal conditions; the surrounding Hong Kong park reinforces this dichotomy between ‘native’ and ‘foreign’ through controlled nurturing mechanisms. Neither are ideal approaches to the natural world. But encouraging a sense of curiosity is arguably more sustainable than entrenching a belief that species are assigned immutable nationality. Which is why the cockatoo ought to be embraced by Hongkongers as an exotic marvel of the modern, globalised world.

Written by Steven Hutt

Illustrated by Sarah Smith

At Loggerheads: Conservationists in Dispute

"You see their tracks along the coastline...they reach the blockades, realise they cannot pass, but they keep trying to nest every few metres until they finally exhaust themselves on the beach" - Yuzi Tanaka (wildlife conservationist)

Long before the line of concrete tetrapods landed on Omotehama Beach (Miyagi, Japan), this precious dune vegetation was a rare habitat for endangered Loggerhead Turtles hatchlings.

Mothering turtles arrive on the beach every year, returning to their place of birth to reproduce, after impossibly long migrations across the planet. This cyclical event crucially relies on these tiny patches of dune vegetation for the survival of their species. The land is so essential precisely because it is so close to the shore, and the shrubs protect the turtle eggs from predation during incubation.

After thousands of kilometres making their way home, these concrete tetrapods effectively block them 2 metres from their territory. Yuzi explains "you see their tracks along the coastline...they reach the blockades, realise they cannot pass, but they keep trying every few metres until they exhaust themselves on the beach".

The inter-locking tetrapods are scattered across the entire length of the dune vegetation habitat, stretching 11 kilometres across Omotehama beach. Yuzi and his wife Mina spearheaded a campaign to relocate the blockades, and in 2008 the government tentatively agreed to set some of them back behind the dunes. But unfortunately, Yuzi notes that his campaign was a complete failure, as the government only removed 1 kilometer of blockades, and do not plan to take any further action. Every year, mothering turtles return home to find that their precious patch of vegetation is just beyond their reach. And every year, Yuzi maps their tracks with increasing dismay, and warns of their plummeting hatchling population.

Sharing Yuzi's concern, fellow conservationists in the area have taken to building designated hatchling houses on the shoreline, in front of the tetrapods. This kind of affirmative action is well-intended, but, like the implementation of the tetrapods, it is not without disagreements over correct locations, quantity, and form. Yuzi tells me,

"[turtle conservationists] go out and dig up eggs laid in the sand, because the mothers cannot reach the dune vegetation...then they relocate them all in these fenced hatchling houses".

Unfortunately these make-shift hatchling houses are designed and built using basic construction methods and materials, and the predators simply burrow under the chicken-wire fencing. Mina exclaims, "they're like food banks!".

Despite this, the hatchling houses are still being used, and conservationists disagree over their next move. The hatchling houses are closely monitored, and have seen some success in recent years according to those running the hatchling network. But, Yuzi explains that their affirmative efforts to manage and protect this species are misguided. The temperature of the ground that incubates the mother's nest eggs determines the gender of the hatchlings. So when female turtles create numerous nests along the beach - a mix of genders will hatch depending on their immediate location, due to slight fluctuations in sand temperature. But when the eggs are collected and artificially stored in designated hatchling houses, the immediate location and sand temperature will be the same for all new hatchlings. Signs of hatchling tracks leading to the tideline are therefore a misleading marker of success, as the demography of the species is neglected.

Yuzi agrees that human intervention is necessary if the loggerhead population is to recover on Omotehama beach. But this intervention does not need to be intensive or invasive. His research and mapping data suggest that the turtles do not require heavily controlled management, or a ring-fenced habitat, to protect hatchlings. The turtles simply need a viable route to a very sustainable habitat that lies just beyond the tetrapods. Relocating these giant concrete blocks appears to be the only sustainable solution to stemming the sharp decline in nesting populations.

Yet, conservationists are being forced to experiment with crude hatchling houses because the removal project is evidently deemed to be too economically inconveniently in relation to current political unrest. And while debate rages on about what course of action to take with no funding. Ultimately, the returning loggerhead population is paying the price.

In 1950, in the laboratory of two engineers in Grenoble, France. Pierre Danel and Paul Anglès d'Auriac were developing a new technology that could be used to alleviate coastal erosion, by dispersing wave forces on sub-aqueous walls. The invention was called the Tetrapod - a reinforced concrete blockade named after the biological super classification of four-limbed vertebrates, 'Tetrapoda'. The concrete tetrapod was designed to be a modular inter-locking structure, that could be used to disperse wave forces whilst remaining collectively stable due to their inter-locking design. Pierre and Paul filed a successful patent for their tetrapod design, and the first concrete blockade of its kind was soon introduced to the perimeter of a thermal power station in Roches Noires, Morocco.

The technology was deemed a success in the field of marine construction, and soon inspired a wave of concrete blockade designs and coastline conservation research, all inspired by Pierre and Paul's original design. The USA designed the Modified Cube (1959); the United Kingdom gave us the Stabit (1961); the Netherlands introduced the Akmon (1962); South Africa began moulding the Dolos (1963); and Romania implemented the Stabilopod (1969). These early technologies later gave rise to more experimental coastline reinforcement designs such as the Seabee (Australia, 1978), the Accropode (France, 1981), and the Xbloc (The Netherlands, 2001). The invention of the tetrapod was undoubtedly a benchmark in coastline conservation, but its legacy has become the centre point of an intense debate in recent years, between wildlife conservationists, marine biologists, and environmental disaster consultants.

The Japanese Government were unsurprisingly an early proponent of the tetrapod design following its success in Morocco. As Japan is so highly prone to earthquakes, typhoons and tsunamis that devastate the landscape, an entire industry of tetrapod manufacturing and dispersal has grown in response to these threats to human settlement. But whilst the concrete blockade is now a popular and widely accepted feature of the Japanese coastline, its early implementations were often marred with disagreements over their correct location, quantity, and form. One of the earliest implementations of the concrete tetrapod in Japan was on Omotehama beach, in the Shizuoka Prefecture of Honshu. The devastating effects of their introduction to the area is now a poignant example of what is at stake, and what happens when economy eclipses ecology.

According to Yuzi Tanaka, a leading wildlife conservationist based in Omotehama, the Japanese government originally wanted to introduce a series of inter-locking tetrapods to a small portion of land set back approximately 50 metres from the dune vegetation that lined the edge of Omotehama beach. This location would have been very effective for wave breaking. But the local fishermen issued numerous complaints, and persuaded the government to relocate the concrete blockades closer to the tideline. They agreed that the blockades would still be effective if positioned between the dune vegetation and the sea.

Unfortunately, whilst the complaints of the fishermen were met with sympathy - the animals that thrived on the beach were not taken into consideration. Now, after years of lobbying to remove the tetrapods with little success - perhaps a speculative alternative could be to re-imagine these concrete blocks as architectural monuments to the lost loggerhead territories. By giving the tetrapods new life as a monument, these concrete blocks could be re-homed across coastal prefectures of Japan, as a reminder of the more-than-human agents that thrive and falter within our anthropogenic landscapes. The image below imagines a literal carving of the concrete - though hundreds of artistic works could proliferate.

[ Concrete tetrapod re-imagined as a creative monument ]

Written by Steven Hutt

Special thanks to Yuzi Tanaka