Print

Mail

wiki links

Newsmakers: Crusading professor to battle on

Chen Yueh-fong, vice president of Providence University, speaks at a press conference in February. PHOTO: TAIPEI TIMES

Less then one week after Provi-dence University vice president Chen Yueh-fong (陳玉峰) learned he had won the the Papilio Xuthus Award as part of the Presidential Cultural Awards of 2003, he said he could not remember what award he won.

"I've already forgotten the award," Chen said. "To be frank, I don't care about the award. I just do what I am supposed to do. What I've done is not for fame, not for fortune, but for the land."

The award recognizes Chen's contribution to forestry protection and ecological preservation. It will be conferred by President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) in November.

"My fight to guard the mountains and forests will never stop just because I won the award," said the 50-year old founder of the Ecological Research Center of Taiwan and the university's ecology graduate school.

He has devoted himself to investigating, classifying and protecting the nation's mountains and forests for 29 years. His work in ecological wildlife reservation as well as his writing, photographs and speeches are aimed at saving the environment from devastation through man-made destruction.

Chen Yueh-fong has promoted land ethics and concern toward nature for a long time as well as participating in social and political movements aimed at promoting local cultural creation.

He is the author of many books, including Bitter Love of Land, Ecology of Taiwan, Biological Stage in Taiwan, Humanity and Ecology, Sad Song of Ecology and Ecological History of Taiwan.

Part of his study on culture and ecology has been included in a textbook for junior-high students, Knowing Taiwan.

Chen Yueh-fong's straightforwardness and fearlessness have won him the nickname "Chen the Cannon," a reflection of his bluntness and willingess to criticize injustice or policies that damage the environment.

"Some people call me the census investigator of trees," he said. "But I consider myself the coroner of Taiwan's forests."

By going deep into forests for nearly three decades, he has witnessed the death of the nation's forests from ill-conceived policies and man-made destruction.

He is bitter about authorities' errant decisions on forest protection and poltically based policies.

"The Central Cross-Island Highway is a good example. We spent billions of dollars to construct this highway but see what we have got now," he said. "Not only has the environment been damaged but farmers suffer from the loss of unsalable crop. We still have to shell out millions of dollars to maintain it after typhoons hit."

He is opposed to the construction of the Su-Hua Highway, which he thinks will be a catastrophe

He emphasized the east coast cannot be exploited the way the west coast has been because the east has no resources to deplete.

Although Chen said he was honored to win the Papilio Xuthus Award, he will not stop to supervising the government's policies.

"What the government has done is far from our ideals and the distance is counted in light years," he said.

Chen Yueh-fong is regarded as a leading spokesman among environmentalists. He once received a package of soil sent by a woman who urged him to launch the movement to stop the National Southern Cross-island Freeway construction projects.

"That is why I was willing to accept this award. So many people are concerned with our land and work so hard to protect the nature," he said.

"This award does not belong to me but to those who have worked silently in this field," he said.
This story has been viewed 2066 times.