A recent statement from Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) shows that, like all administrations before it, Taiwan’s current government has not realized what is at stake and prefers to think in the same old ways that brought us all into the mess we are in today.
“You cannot just look at one part of the picture,” Wu said in the debate about a piece of unspoilt land in Taipei that is in large part going to be transformed into a commercial and residential area (“Author Chang to inspect site of Munitions Works,” May 12, page 2). “If Taiwan preserved all its wetlands, would it be able to develop the economy or create employment opportunities?”
By putting short-term economic growth above sustainable development and conservation, Wu is committing the cardinal mistake so common among politicians and big business. A responsible government should prioritize the preservation of what unspoilt land remains because such land is a limited and valuable resource.
Once we manage to destroy enough of it to tip the balance and destroy the natural systems that depend on it, the impact on our lives and well-being will be even greater and “developing the economy” will be the least of our worries. Wu’s idea of economic growth just means further exploiting Taiwan and its environment without caring about the consequences.
Taiwan’s entire west coast, including the Taipei basin, has already been overdeveloped in the last few decades to the extent where there is hardly any unspoilt land left. It is a landscape of concrete, roads and factories that is as shocking to foreign tourists as Taiwan’s mountains are awe-inspiring.
Instead of sealing and “developing” even the last few hectares of unspoiled land, the government and corporations should be legally forced to use other areas for their construction projects. There are thousands of hectares of former factories and industrial wasteland that can be used, often in central locations with existing road networks.
However, that would mean there may not be so much money to be made by big businesses. As Chiu Hei-yuan (瞿海源) pointed out (“The hypocrisy of Hau Lung-bin,” May 11, page 8), the government plans in Taipei not only to hand over nine hectares to Academia Sinica for a biotech research park, but also 57 hectares to corporations for the construction of offices, labs and luxury residential housing. There is a lot of money to be made and one can only wonder how far that fact influenced the government’s decision.
Our children and grandchildren will have to deal with the catastrophic consequences of today’s unsustainable politics. Looking back, they will point out what went wrong and they will blame politicians like Wu for making the wrong decision. Those responsible will be long gone, but they will have left behind a heritage of irresponsibility, greed and short-sightedness.
Klaus Bardenhagen
Taipei
RSS