Two camping hotspots in Hong Kong’s Sai Kung district saw over 500 tents during the Lunar New Year holiday, far exceeding the government’s capacity estimates, Greenpeace has said.

There were 450 tents in Ham Tin Wan and about 135 in Sai Wan on Wednesday night, the second day of Lunar New Year, the NGO said on Thursday.

Some campers lit fires and littered after dark, the green group added.

Both locations are popular campsites in Sai Kung, each with an estimated capacity for 50 four-person tent spaces, according to the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department (AFCD).

“That means the number of tents in Ham Tin Wan exceeded the official recommended figure nine times,” Greenpeace said in a Chinese-language social media post on Thursday.

While government staff were present at the locations during the day, law enforcement officers were absent at night when the littering and fires occurred, the green group said.

Greenpeace also reported overflowing trash bins at Ham Tin Wan on Thursday morning. The bins, installed after hundreds of campers flocked to the site on New Year’s Eve, were merely “a drop in the bucket” and were insufficient for the holiday crowds, Greenpeace said.

Greenpeace urged authorities to manage tourist flows in the countryside during the holiday rather than relying on cleaners to tidy up afterwards.

The AFCD said in a Facebook post on Thursday that no “acts of severe environmental damage” were found or reported at Ham Tin Wan and Sai Wan during the Lunar New Year holiday, adding that it would continue to monitor the situation.

Between Saturday and Thursday, the AFCD initiated 16 prosecutions, including 14 cases of littering and one case of illegal fire-lighting, the department said in a reply to local media.

The AFCD also said the estimated capacities were not a formal “upper limit” on the number of tents that the two locations could host.

Ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday, Greenpeace urged the government to formulate a policy framework to regulate eco-tourism, including assessments of holiday visitor numbers and environmental capacity at popular locations.

According to the green group, at least 22 sites with high ecological value in Hong Kong are not protected by environmental ordinances because they lie outside designated country parks and marine parks.