Problems and prospects of revitalizing marine pearl cultivation in highly urbanized coasts: A case study of Tolo Harbour in Hong Kong

Pearl farming is part of Hong Kong’s maritime heritage. Its history in the territory can be traced back
irregularly for over a millennium, focussed on what was then known as the Tai Po Sea ( now
Tolo Harbour (Tolo Gang)). For a short period in the 10th century AD Southern Han,
during the turbulent Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, the pearl farming became
a tightly guarded Imperial monopoly. Thereafter the detail is uncertain but pearl fishing would seem
to have continued, if not on a large scale, until the British annexation of the New Territories in 1898,
although the centre of gravity, focussed on edible oysters, had moved to Deep Bay. An attempt was
made to begin a cultivated pearl industry in Tolo Harbour in the 1960s but it failed. In this paper we
seek to reconstruct the history of that episode and reveal the reasons why the ventures failed based
on interviews with participants, newspaper clippings, government records and records kept by the
Hong Kong Heritage Project. Despite government support, key failings were an inability to find the
way to cultivate oysters in Hong Kong and a deficiency of wild pearl oysters available for grafting.
Based on this historical lesson, the feasibility of revitalizing the pearl cultivation industry in highly
urbanized coastal cities like Hong Kong, including improvements to water quality via biofiltration, are
evaluated and discussed. Some recommendations are made for enabling the industry to be viable and
sustainable.