ABSTRACT
For some years now, the concept of ‘ecological footprints’ has gained currency in the study of the impact of development, especially urban development, on the ecosystem. Unfortunately, in many if not most cases the impact produces more than ‘footprints’. Therefore we have elsewhere (Cook and Murray, 2001) coined the term ‘ecological tramplings’ to highlight the negative impact of urban and industrial growth especially on surrounding areas. China's economic expansion of recent decades has been tremendous; the concomitant urbanisation associated with this has also been on a massive scale. So too has been that in ‘Greater China’, including Hong Kong and Taiwan (see Chapter 9).
