The Ministry of the Interior yesterday announced the establishment of the nation's first ocean national park around Tungsha Island (
The proposal to turn Tungsha Island, also known as Pratas Island, into an ocean national park was approved by the National Park Committee last month and is now being reviewed by the Executive Yuan.
"This national park aims to preserve the environment, promote tourism, obtain international recognition and augment Taiwan's official claim to the island," Minister of the Interior Yu Cheng-hsien (
Tungsha Island, a coral atoll in the South China Sea, is flanked by two coral reefs that Yu said are the most spectacular in Taiwanese waters.
"The island is an ideal location for a national park because of its wide variety of species. Furthermore, its surrounding deep seas include abundant ocean historical resources," he said, referring to shipwrecks in the area.
The national park will cover 28,650 hectares, and the area within 100m of the island's coral reefs will be designated core biological preservation zones.
The interior minister also raised the possibility of offering state-funded artificial insemination to raise the nation's birth rate.
"The birth rate has fallen to 210,000 births in 2000 from 420,000 in 1982," Yu said. "We are a country with one of the lowest birth rates.
In order to raise the birth rate, the Ministry of the Interior has proposed including artificial insemination for first-time pregnancies under the national health insurance system.
However, Yu said the Department of Health has not responded positively to his ministry's proposal.
The artificial insemination proposal is one of 11 listed in the "Birth-Rate Promotion Plan (
"However, pregnancy-cost subsidies are not appealing enough to married couples to plan for parenthood, as raising children is more costly. Therefore, the Ministry of the Interior is also looking to come up with a series of comprehensive child-care plans," Yu said.
This could include public child-care centers and longer maternal and paternal leave, he said.
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