Formation of new property rights on government land through informal co-management: Case studies on countryside guerilla gardening

- Morning walkers' gardens (MWGs) in the Hong Kong countryside are a unique form of guerilla gardening.
- Five distinct phases can be determined in the land use evolution of MWGs in Hong Kong country parks, namely, toleration, registration, recognition, zoning, and enhancement.
- The land use evolution of MWGs represents/demonstrates the emergence of incipient forms of co-management of land resources in Hong Kong.
- Local resource user leadership plays an important role in the emergence of informal partnership arrangements in the management of natural resource in Hong Kong protected areas.

Extant research on guerilla gardening, defined as the unauthorized cultivation of land belonging to another, has hitherto focused on public space in urban areas, neglecting those that occur in rural settings. This rural land policy study examines a form of guerilla gardening in the countryside in Hong Kong, carried out by specific walker communities who routinely do early morning walks. Most of the gardens they have cultivated have become part of country park protected areas. This study identifies five phases of land use status evolution undergone by these morning walkers' gardens (MWG), from the time the phenomenon of guerilla gardening in the countryside began in the 1960s to recent times, illustrating the role of land use change in enabling squatters with a degree of property rights by way of informal land resource co-management. Through the three case studies presented in this article, it is argued that MWGs can represent the emergence of incipient forms of natural resource co-management in Hong Kong. This study emphasizes the important role of resource user leadership in enhancing the land use value of land in itself and for the wider community. Some recommendations are provided to enhance resource user participation in land resource management.