After having crossed the border between Hong Kong and China, we arrived in the city of Shenzhen and our conference venue; the Kylin Villa Hotel in the middle of beautiful hills next to the city. Shenzhen is an urban metropole that has grown from a small fishery village to a mega-city with about 12 million people in less than 30 years. Although growing very fast, Shenzhen still maintains a green coverage rate of about 45%, which could be witnessed from our hotel premises, too.

In mid-December almost our whole research group happily left the rainy Finland and headed to Shenzhen, China, to attend and present our work at the ESP9 (Ecosystem Service Partnership) conference. As Shenzhen is close to Hong Kong, we took the opportunity to visit some of the interesting ecosystem sights in Hong Kong, such as the Kadoorie Farm and Botanic Garden in the heights of the more rural parts of the city, focusing on nature conservation and sustainable living. After s