1. Research Background
Hong Kong is widely associated with its dense urban environment, yet around 75% of its land remains rural, containing villages, farmland, forests and other landscapes. Many Hakka villages in the New Territories developed through long-term interactions among settlement, agriculture, cultural practices and the natural environment. These villages can therefore be understood as cultural landscapes rather than simply collections of historic buildings.
However, rural depopulation and migration have disrupted many of the social and environmental relationships that sustained these landscapes. Agricultural land has been abandoned, buildings have become underused, and community networks have weakened. In response, the Hong Kong government has increasingly promoted rural conservation and revitalisation through funding and community-based projects. Yet physical restoration and new visitor activities do not necessarily restore the communities and everyday practices that originally sustained these landscapes.
This research therefore asks how heritage can remain “living” when the original resident communities have become dispersed and the relationships between people, culture and the environment have changed.
2. Research Aim and Questions
The aim of this study is to examine how the nature–culture relationships that constitute Hakka cultural landscapes are disrupted and reconfigured through rural depopulation and revitalisation, and how a living heritage approach can support their continuity.
3. Conceptual Framework
The research begins with the cultural landscape approach, which understands Hakka villages as landscapes formed through long-term interactions between people and their natural environments. Nature–culture integration is therefore not treated simply as a conservation strategy, but as a characteristic of how these landscapes were historically formed and sustained.
The living heritage approach then provides a framework for examining what happens to these relationships when the original communities and everyday practices change. Following Poulios (2014), continuity is considered through four dimensions: the continuity of the original function, community connection, care, and the evolution of tangible and intangible heritage expressions.
Within this framework, the research examines how nature–culture relationships can be maintained, adapted or reconfigured as a means of sustaining living heritage continuity in depopulated villages.
4. Methodology
The study adopts a qualitative comparative case-study approach focusing on three Hakka villages in Hong Kong’s northeastern New Territories: Lai Chi Wo, Mui Tsz Lam and Kat O. These cases were selected because they represent different geographical conditions, degrees of depopulation and forms of revitalisation.
Data will be collected through three methods: document analysis, field observation and semi-structured interviews. Documents will include government policies, conservation and revitalisation project materials, academic literature and relevant public records. Field observations will examine the physical condition of heritage, patterns of spatial use, community activities and visitor presence. Semi-structured interviews will focus on understandings of nature–culture relationships, community participation, changes in cultural practices and perceptions of long-term sustainability.
The three cases will be compared to identify both common patterns and differences in how living heritage continuity is maintained and reconfigured.
5. Expected Contribution
The research aims to contribute to discussions of rural heritage conservation in three ways. First, it shifts attention from the preservation of individual buildings or heritage elements toward the continuity of relationships that constitute cultural landscapes. Second, it examines how the living heritage concept can be applied in contexts where the historical core community has become dispersed, requiring new forms of community participation and connection. Third, it considers sustainability as a longer-term consequence of continued use, care and adaptation rather than simply the completion of revitalisation projects.
More broadly, the study seeks to demonstrate that revitalising depopulated villages does not necessarily mean restoring them to an unchanged historical condition. Instead, it may involve reinvention: maintaining meaningful heritage relationships while allowing them to evolve in response to changing social and environmental conditions.