In the middle of a long holiday weekend, many people might have missed two disturbing news reports on the environmental front on Thursday.
The first was the announcement by the Philippine government that it was closing Boracay to tourists for six months, starting on April 26, to allow for an intensive cleanup of the pollution and sewage-plagued island.
The second was a report issued last month by the legislature’s Legislative Research Bureau that said the nation had not met its standards on particulate pollution from 2013 to 2016, despite having standards that are much laxer than many developed nations’.
While the first story might not seem important except to those planning a vacation this year, it comes in the wake of the Indonesian island of Bali declaring a “garbage emergency” along 5.7km of its western coastline and the Thai government’s announcement that it would close Maya Bay to tourists from June to September.
Bali, Boracay and Maya Bay have all suffered tremendously from largely unrestrained growth in tourism over the past two to three decades, resulting in massive garbage disposal and sewage problems, and damage to coral reefs and marine ecosystems.
Closing these areas for a few months will not do much to reverse or even repair the damage, though visual blight of trash and plastic detritus can be removed
However, such drastic measures should serve as a reminder of the need for adequate infrastructure and tough environmental protection laws to protect fragile ecosystems, such as beaches, reefs and bays, as well as river systems and coastal land around them.
Taiwan’s beaches — and its tourism industry — have long suffered in comparison to the beauty and quality of their Southeast Asian counterparts, but this nation’s shoreline and reef systems have not escaped humankind’s destructive tendencies: Just look at Kenting, Green Island and Penghu, to name a few.
Be it plastics and other garbage left by landlubbers on beaches and mountain trails, fly tipping, marine pollution, industrial and agricultural pollution of rivers (which washes into the sea), discharges of untreated wastewater or the trash from China washing up along Kinmen’s shores, Taiwan has a problem.
The central government has slowly taken steps to come to grips with the problem, but local governments, industry and even local residents far too often are willing to value short-term benefits over long-term degradation, the Taitung County Government’s support of Miramar Resort Hotel Co’s hotel project at Shanyuan Bay (杉原灣) being a prime example, as well as Kenting.
As for air pollution, the nation’s west coast was given another reminder on Wednesday, when the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) said that air quality in most parts of western Taiwan was “unhealthy,” with an orange warning generated by its Air Quality Index at 31 monitoring stations, including three in the north.
The bureau’s report said that while the levels of particulate pollution have dropped — from 24 micrograms per cubic meter in 2013 to 20 in 2016 — they are still far higher than the 15 micrograms per cubic meter annual standard set by regulations.
It recommended that the central government submit an annual written report on how it is combating poor air quality.
However, it would be far more effective if the central government spent its time drafting or amending regulations to raise the nation’s environmental standards for air, water and soil pollution, and step up enforcement — rather than generating more reports to be “used for reference,” as it likes to say.
Taiwanese have become much more aware of the need for tougher air pollution standards, as seen by the outcry over an EPA committee’s approval of the opening of a new coal-fired Shenao Power Plant in New Taipei City.
They need to be equally vocal and active about protecting the nation’s beaches and waters.
After all, a proactive approach to environmental protection is far more effective than a reactive one, or, as the sports world says: The best defense is a good offense.
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