“Management of these areas involves intensive surveillance and surveillance operations, including land and sea patrols and the presence of personnel on site.”
Using AI-based technology, authorities can more accurately count the number of visitors entering rural parks, improve wildfire detection, and combat illegal fishing and boat-based speeders. He added that it will be.
The topic came up on Tuesday when the ministry's Country and Marine Parks Committee held a meeting to discuss the management of the city's 32 country and marine parks.
Country Park Ranger Service Officer Mariah Stewart said the department had installed 28 automated infrared sensors at various entrances to country parks in Aberdeen and Tyrum as part of a trial run in 2022.
The policy will increase visitor numbers in 2023 by up to 70% over figures based on physical counts, with Aberdeen Country Park and Tyrum Country Park count systems recording 900,000 and 1.1 million visitors respectively. it was done.
Stewart said the results suggest that “automated counters have the potential to capture visitor flows that may have been previously underestimated.”
He said authorities plan to install 60 more sensors in rural parks in the central New Territories and Hong Kong Island by the end of this year.
In 2017, the ministry launched a pilot project to install an AI-assisted wildfire detection system at the Tin Phu Tsai fire watch station in Tai Lam Country Park.
According to official statistics, 210 wildfires occurred between 2014 and 2023, damaging 2,700 hectares (6,671 acres) of land and more than 63,000 trees.
Mr Lee, the country parks officer, said that during the last fire season, which lasted from September last year to April this year, the department dispatched officers to 11 observation posts in the city and conducted round-the-clock monitoring. .
In addition to providing images, the detectors can also “save valuable human resources” by collecting and transmitting real-time information about potential wildfires, including time, location, and size, it added. Ta.
Officials plan to install wildfire detectors to cover up to 70 percent of the city's country parks.Photo: Elson Lee
Last year, the ministry secured funding from the Department of Innovation, Technology and Industry to install bushfire detectors at all 11 monitoring stations, creating a monitoring network covering up to 70% of the city's country parks.
Lee said the network is expected to be completed by mid-2026.
In 2022, the ministry installed video analysis surveillance systems at two locations near Lantau Island and one at Cape D'Aguilar Marine Reserve to collect information on illegal fishing and speeding.
Marine Parks Officer Ivan Tran Kwok-kuen said on Tuesday that his department is working with government experts to develop AI-based software to detect suspected illegal fishing and speeding vessels in Southern Lantau Marine Park. He said he was training.
The department hopes to complete training on the software this year, he added.
Mr Chan said a similar system will be installed in northern Lantau this year to monitor Sha Chau Marine Park, Longkou Chau Marine Park and Brothers Marine Park. Both areas form important habitat for the city's fragile Chinese beluga population.
He said the installation of another system in the Cape d'Aguilar Marine Reserve is expected to be completed in 2025.
