Sha Lo Tung is located in the northern New Territories and surrounded by Pat Sin Leng Country Park. Its major habitats include freshwater stream, seasonal wetland, abandoned farmland and Fung Shui Woodland. The streams in Sha Lo Tung and its marsh on the northeastern part belong to Site of Special Scientific Interest and it is regarded as the second Priority Sites for Enhanced Conservation, just after Mai Po. Sha Lo Tung has the highest dragonfly species richness and 72 species has been recorded including a Hong Kong endemic species, Macromidia ellenae. Moreover, 14 amphibian species and 95 butterfly species as well as other rare species such as a endemic fish species, Hong Kong Paradise Fish (Macropodus hongkongensis) and Chinese Pangolin (Manis pentadactyla) etc have been recorded. Half of the land in Sha Lo Tung is private land and a developer wants to construct columbaria on the land after buying the ownership from villagers. Therefore a Public-Private Partnership is applied to let the developer to build columbaria and at the same time provide money to environmental groups to do conservation work in Sha Lo Tung. However, the environmental impact of having columbaria on a natural habitats still arouse heated debate.

The habitats have suffered numerous destructions through the years. At the end of 2015, large stretches of seasonal wetlands and abandoned farmland were bulldozed in the name of reviving farming activities. The future of Sha Lo Tung's conservation is not optimistic.