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According to The Dublin Principles, it is important to have interdisciplinary guidelines to document and understand the values of tangible and intangible heritage in the context of socio-economic and industrial histories through a diverse set of methodologies. In order to protect the integrity and authenticity of a site, appropriate policies, legal and administrative measures are required to develop an integrated inventory, identifying specific characteristics while meeting contemporary built environment-related requirements at the same time. The conservation authority also needs enhanced power to promote the integrity and authenticity of the site. Physical intervention should be reversible and if a heritage could not be retained, thorough documentation should be done.

 

Industrial heritage item should be recognised as a valuable educational resource for multi-dimensional learning about history, social science and STEAM subjects for students as well as for professionals, corporate sectors, NGOs and the general public.

Strengths

  1. Landscape, though transformed, remains rather intact
     

  2. The integrity of the historic structures at the mine allows revitalisation and re-opening of some sections of the mining tunnels.
     

  3. There are rich social capital and collective memories in the MOS Iron Mine and surrounding landscape.
     

  4. There are clear socio-cultural, ecological and religious story-lines that connect the mine to local, regional and global histories.
     

  5. There are enthusiastic local advocacy groups to promote the values of the MOS Iron Mine.

Opportunities

  1. MOS Country Park and MOS Park nearby provide enough space for exhibiting the stories of the mine.
     

  2. There is development potential in MOS, providing possible opportunities for partnership between the private sector and civil society.
     

  3. Cooperation of the local advocacy groups with other conservation-centred NGOs.
     

  4. There are growing public interests towards the iron mine and its landscape.
     

  5. Technological advancement such as augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) can be used to communicate the values and significance of the site.
     

  6. The digital era provides multiple platforms for public engagement.
     

  7. Policies for conservation and creative arts are developing.

Weaknesses

  1. Accessibility of the conservation site has to be improved.
     

  2. Vulnerable environment has limited carrying capacity (e.g. natural disasters such as landslide).
     

  3. There is a lack of resources for conservation (e.g. financial, technical support, human resources).
     

  4. Existing community members may not know about the values of the MOS Iron Mine.

Threats

  1. Micro-climate accelerates the ageing of the remaining structures.
     

  2. The awareness for protecting and leaving-no-trace in the heritage site has to be improved (e.g. plastic bullets, probably a result of playing war games, are found near the remaining structures of the MOS Iron Mine from time to time).
     

  3. The current conservation policy is rather inadequate, providing little policy, financial and technical support to conserving industrial heritage in Hong Kong.

SWOT analysis of the MOS Iron Mine

Base on the SWOT analysis of the research materials, an online survey and an online workshop, we prepared a proposal tp conserve the MOS Iron Mine landscape using a Point-Line-Plane approach.

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