As the anti-globalization movement gathers steam worldwide, it is incorporating environmentalism into its general philosophy. This week, activists in Taiwan will discuss the experience they have gained in the fight against waste incinerators with their counterparts from overseas.
The event is called an "international anti-incinerator forum" and the activists hope to exchange ideas in an effort to concoct successful strategies against the building of incinerators.
The annual conference of Waste Not Asia (WNA, 清淨亞洲), the first Asian trans-national environmental group to focus general opposition against waste incineration and landfills, is scheduled to be held from July 26 to 30 in Taipei.
Established last July, WNA is a cooperative venture of activists from several Asian countries, including India, the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Guam, Pakistan, Nepal, Thailand, Japan, China, South Korea and Taiwan.
In the past year, activists from other countries such as Vietnam and Cambodia joined the alliance. In those countries, the countryside has been used as a toxic waste depository by other dominating countries.
WNA is financially supported by the US-based Global Anti-Incinerator Alliance (GAIA), an international alliance of individuals, academ-ics, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and others working to end waste incineration.
The Taipei forum will have at least 100 people attending from the US, Australia, and several Asian countries.
"Most NGOs in the world are working on promoting anti-globalization. So a trend is starting of establishing global networks by themselves. We work hand-in-hand on diverse issues," Lai Wei-chieh (賴偉傑), secretary-general of the Green Citizens' Action Alliance (GCAA, 綠色公民行動聯盟), told the Taipei Times yesterday.
Taking recent anti-G8 demonstrations as an example, Lai said fighting together toward common targets made activists with diverse backgrounds and missions more united.
"The adroit manipulation of NGOs on environmental issues will soon become a concern. After all, the trans-national cooperation of NGOs could be as complicated as the diplomatic contact between governments," Lai said.
The GCAA this year helped the WNA to organize the annual conference with the Taiwan Watch Institute (TWI, 看守台灣協會), a Taipei-based environmental group dedicated to fighting incinerator use. However, it is GAIA that will decide the agenda of the conference, including speakers and topics for discussion.
The main topics of the conference include the introduction of international environmental treaties, the estimation of the real cost of waste incinerators, the responsibility of manufacturers to recycle electronic products, the usage of left-overs as fertilizer, and urban waste management in other countries.
"Through this channel [the conference], environmentalists in developing countries can gather updated information already used in developed countries, and eventually come up with their own strategies based on the cultural or political situation in their countries," said George Cheng (鄭益明), TWI executive general.
Without essential information or successful strategies in other countries, Cheng said, local activists could hardly raise public awareness to fight poorly-designed environmental policies or any intolerable behavior by irresponsible industry proponents.
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