A nature reserve will be established around the historic Alangyi Trail that stretches from Taitung County to Pingtung County, saving the 12km-long Pacific coastline hiking trail from the threat posed by the planned construction of Provincial Highway No. 26.
A Pingtung County Government review committee yesterday designated 841.3 hectares of public land from Syuhai (旭海) to Cape Guanyin (觀音鼻) in Pingtung a nature reserve, meaning road construction would not be allowed in the area, in line with the Cultural Heritage Preservation Act (文化資產保留法).
The trail runs from Taitung County’s Nantian Village (南田) to Syuhai Village (旭海) in Pingtung.
Photo: Tsai Tsung-hsien, Taipei Times
Since last year, thousands of environmental protection groups and activists have been urging the government to abandon the road plan to protect the last 1 percent of natural coastline remaining in Taiwan, which is along the Alangyi trail, saying the area is home to a rich natural ecology with many species of animals and plants, including the endangered green sea turtle.
To date, 944 civic groups and 61,040 people have signed a petition calling for the road construction to be stopped.
Yesterday morning, hundreds of activists sat outside the Pingtung County Government building, holding banners in support of a nature reserve to preserve the trail and its surroundings.
“We’ve come here to tell the review committee that Taiwan is fed up with concrete tetrapods and coastal groins,” said Hung Hui-hsiang (洪輝祥), chairman of the Pingtung Environmental Protection Union.
However, many people also favor the road because of the economic development it could bring to the area.
Some lawmakers, along with hundreds of local residents, held a counter-protest outside the county building. They held up signs reading “illegal review,” saying the residents’ opinions were being neglected and that they supported the construction of the road.
Construction work was held back over the past year by the Pingtung County Government’s designation of a temporary nature reserve.
The area’s natural landscape would be irreversiblely destroyed by road construction, Pingtung County Deputy Commissioner Chung Chia-pin (鍾佳濱) said after the meeting.
“After examining the information gathered from nearly one year of investigation on the area’s natural environment, the committee has agreed to designate the area a natural reserve,” he said.
Chung said any attempt to modify the reserve’s boundaries or terminate the county’s designation of the area as a nature reserve would also have to go through the same review process.
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
BEIJING’S ‘PAWN’: ‘We, as Chinese, should never forget our roots, history, culture,’ Want Want Holdings general manager Tsai Wang-ting said at a summit in China The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday condemned Want Want China Times Media Group (旺旺中時媒體集團) for making comments at the Cross-Strait Chinese Culture Summit that it said have damaged Taiwan’s sovereignty, adding that it would investigate if the group had colluded with China in the matter and contravened cross-strait regulations. The council issued a statement after Want Want Holdings (旺旺集團有限公司) general manager Tsai Wang-ting (蔡旺庭), the third son of the group’s founder, Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明), said at the summit last week that the group originated in “Chinese Taiwan,” and has developed and prospered in “the motherland.” “We, as Chinese, should never
‘A SURVIVAL QUESTION’: US officials have been urging the opposition KMT and TPP not to block defense spending, especially the special defense budget, an official said The US plans to ramp up weapons sales to Taiwan to a level exceeding US President Donald Trump’s first term as part of an effort to deter China as it intensifies military pressure on the nation, two US officials said on condition of anonymity. If US arms sales do accelerate, it could ease worries about the extent of Trump’s commitment to Taiwan. It would also add new friction to the tense US-China relationship. The officials said they expect US approvals for weapons sales to Taiwan over the next four years to surpass those in Trump’s first term, with one of them saying
INDO-PACIFIC REGION: Royal Navy ships exercise the right of freedom of navigation, including in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, the UK’s Tony Radakin told a summit Freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific region is as important as it is in the English Channel, British Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Tony Radakin said at a summit in Singapore on Saturday. The remark came as the British Royal Navy’s flagship aircraft carrier, the HMS Prince of Wales, is on an eight-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific region as head of an international carrier strike group. “Upholding the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and with it, the principles of the freedom of navigation, in this part of the world matters to us just as it matters in the
RSS