On Earth Day yesterday, people in Taiwan had quite a few reminders of the environmental threats facing them. A sandstorm from Mongolia just swept through the country. The nation is facing its most serious drought in half a century and some areas in the center and south are already rationing water. All of Taiwan will face water rationing by next month if the rains continue to stay away.
Taiwan's economic development has long won praise as a model for developing countries. However, the blind pursuit of development has created many environmental crises -- the unbridled extraction of underground water along the southeast coast caused the land to sink, places in Taoyuan and Changhua Counties have been polluted with cadmium and Pingtung's papaya crops suffer from copper pollu-tion. The list goes on -- an RCA factory caused groundwater pollution in Taoyuan County and had high rates of cancer among its employees, illegal gravel mines in Changhua and Pingtung ruined farmland and poisonous waste has been dumped in Pingtung and Taipei Counties. More than 40 percent of Taiwan's major rivers are seriously polluted -- in the last 10 years, polluted stretches of rivers have increased by 100km. Taiwan is no longer "Ila Formosa."
Take the current drought for example. It is not entirely a natural phenomena. Man-made factors such as the destruction of mountain slopes, deforestation, overdevelopment that has reduced the land's ability to retain water, wasteful water usage habits and the government's inefficient water resources management policies all bear a share of the blame.
Taiwan is not alone in facing environmental changes. The entire global ecology is facing fundamental shifts. Holes in the earth's ozone layer continue to grow. The greenhouse effect is causing climatic changes and rising sea levels. Tropical rainforests are shrinking and deserts are gradually expanding. More species of flora and fauna become endangered or extinct every day. Each link in the chain of ecological and environmental damage is a cost that all humanity will have to pay.
To protect the environment and preserve biological diversity, we must make good use of natural resources as we pursue economic development. Countries from around the world, including Taiwan, participated in the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio De Janeiro and signed the Rio Declaration vowing to make joint efforts in redressing environmental pollution. To tackle the problem of greenhouse emissions, countries around the world also signed the Kyoto Protocol and the work goes on to implement it, despite the US backing out of the pact. Though not a signatory country, Taiwan has tried to realize the shared objectives of the protocol.
The government is planning to set up a ministry of the environment and resources as part of its restructuring plan in order to raise the level of administration and integration of planning in environmental protection and natural resources. Overall environmental considerations will have to include policies on land development, water resources, resource exploitation, ecological preservation, prevention of public hazards, community development and waste management. Both the government and the people of Taiwan must learn to use their resources more effectively, reduce the damage to the environment and work toward sustainable development. Taiwan should also strive to join international environmental organizations in order to help promote environmental protection around the world. The future of humanity lies in shared values and interests that transcend ethnic and national boundaries.
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