About 200 people who live within the boundaries of Kenting National Park in Pingtung County forced their way into the Legislative Yuan yesterday as an Internal Administration Committee meeting was in progress to protest against the National Park Act (國家公園法).
Holding signs that read “We want our right to survival” and “The National Park Act is illegitimate and unjust,” the residents forced their way through a side gate and tried to get into the meeting room as soon as they learned that the Internal Administration Committee had begun an article-by-article review of revisions to the act.
In recent weeks, the Internal Administration Committee has been reviewing amendment proposals made by both the Cabinet and lawmakers to the National Park Act, the first since it was enacted in 1972.
However, Kenting residents — many of whom lived in the area before it was designated a national park in 1982 — worry that the stricter regulations in the proposed amendments could limit their freedoms.
While in its current form Article 17 stipulates that construction or demolition of public or private buildings must obtain government approval, the proposed revision adds that repairs must also be approved by the authorities.
“My house is very old and I need to do repair work on it from time to time. Will I have to wait for my house to collapse if my application to renovate it is rejected?” a protester asked through a loudspeaker.
“We want lawmakers to hear what we have to say,” local borough chief Tsai Cheng-jung (蔡正榮) said. “There have been too many restrictions on our daily lives since Kenting National Park was created. It doesn’t make sense to make the laws even more strict.”
Tsai said the Ministry of the Interior (MOI) — which manages national parks — had not organized public hearings to hear residents’ opinions before making the proposals.
Police officers guarding the legislature attempted to prevent the protesters from entering the compound, but as there were only about a dozen police at the scene, the demonstrators were able to go in.
When protesters discovered that the doors to the meeting room were locked, they tried to get in through a connecting room next door, but were pushed back by police.
Protesters finally agreed to leave after Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Wu Yu-sheng (吳育昇), who presided over the meeting, called it off and asked the MOI to hold public hearings before any further reviews.
Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Tien Chiu-chin (田秋堇) said national parks should be divided into “urban” and “natural reserves.”
“In urban national parks, such as Kenting and Yangmingshan, where people have lived for generations, we should loosen restrictions to make it easier for residents,” she said. “For national parks with little human activity, such as Yushan National Park, however, we could make laws more strict to protect the ecosystem.”
Taiwan’s Liu Ming-i, right, who also goes by the name Ray Liu, poses with a Chinese Taipei flag after winning the gold medal in the men’s physique 170cm competition at the International Fitness and Bodybuilding Federation Asian Championship in Ajman, United Arab Emirates, yesterday.
Costa Rica sent a group of intelligence officials to Taiwan for a short-term training program, the first time the Central American country has done so since the countries ended official diplomatic relations in 2007, a Costa Rican media outlet reported last week. Five officials from the Costa Rican Directorate of Intelligence and Security last month spent 23 days in Taipei undergoing a series of training sessions focused on national security, La Nacion reported on Friday, quoting unnamed sources. The Costa Rican government has not confirmed the report. The Chinese embassy in Costa Rica protested the news, saying in a statement issued the same
A year-long renovation of Taipei’s Bangka Park (艋舺公園) began yesterday, as city workers fenced off the site and cleared out belongings left by homeless residents who had been living there. Despite protests from displaced residents, a city official defended the government’s relocation efforts, saying transitional housing has been offered. The renovation of the park in Taipei’s Wanhua District (萬華), near Longshan Temple (龍山寺), began at 9am yesterday, as about 20 homeless people packed their belongings and left after being asked to move by city personnel. Among them was a 90-year-old woman surnamed Wang (王), who last week said that she had no plans
TO BE APPEALED: The environment ministry said coal reduction goals had to be reached within two months, which was against the principle of legitimate expectation The Taipei High Administrative Court on Thursday ruled in favor of the Taichung Environmental Protection Bureau in its administrative litigation against the Ministry of Environment for the rescission of a NT$18 million fine (US$609,570) imposed by the bureau on the Taichung Power Plant in 2019 for alleged excess coal power generation. The bureau in November 2019 revised what it said was a “slip of the pen” in the text of the operating permit granted to the plant — which is run by Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) — in October 2017. The permit originally read: “reduce coal use by 40 percent from Jan.