Heritage conservation through private donation: The case of Dragon Garden in Hong Kong

Conserving built heritage involves competition for land and ongoing costs. The incentive to preserve is thus particularly low in areas where economic considerations prevail and conservation mechanisms are centralised. This used to be the case in Hong Kong. However, a series of civil conservation efforts since 2003, featuring judicial review, civil disobedience and private donation, have contested the official definition of monument and highlighted the values of local heritage in the public discourse. A recent case, namely the campaign to save Dragon Garden through private donations, reveals the roles of voluntarism in built heritage conservation when neither the state nor the market has the incentive or commitment to do so. Based on this case study, this article also examines the sustainability of civil action in an unfavourable institutional setting, which only managed to evoke perfunctory conservation measures from the government.