Old stone irrigation channels in Yangmingshan National Park used by generations of local residents are under threat from ill-conceived drainage plans, according to environmentalists and officials.
Yeh Pin-yu (
PHOTO COURTESY OF YEH PIN-YU, SOCIETY OF NATURE PHOTOGRAPHY
The six channels are near Chungho Village, which sits beside the Yang-jin Highway and is home to dozens of villagers.
PHOTO COURTESY OF YEH PIN-YU, SOCIETY OF NATURE PHOTOGRAPHY
According to Yeh, some residents said such ancient irrigation channels, which deliver river water to low-lying fields, were built more than 100 years ago, before Japan colonized Taiwan at the end of the 19th century.
But three of the channels have now been marred by the additions of cement ditches to divert water from the channels. The first concrete drains were erected more than a year ago. The third was recently completed.
On Sunday, researchers, environmentalists and officials from the Yangmingshan National Park Administration inspected the construction site, where they saw that the cement had already set.
"We don't understand why the government did not consider ecological conservation and cultural preservation," Yeh said.
She said that such historic treasures deserve to be preserved and her society has worked with many other groups and ecological experts in a bid to halt the construction.
"Farming families there still keep traditional way of life, Bayan Area looks more natural and quiet compared to other scenic spots in the national park," Yeh said.
Activists said that financial support from the park's administration and Jinshan Township Office has been spent arbitrarily on building roads and cement escape canals without considering ecological conservation.
The construction of two sections of cement escape canals was co-financed by the Jinshan Township Office and the park administration. Yangmingshan National Park Headquarters Secretary Chan Te-shu (
"We will soon invite experts to review the construction and come up with remedial measures," Chan said.
According to Chan, farmers in the area had asked for the drainage construction. Most of them used to make their living as rice farmers but now concentrate on growing flowers because they are more profitable.
"So they said their fields do not need so much water from the irrigation channels. That's why they asked the local township office to finance the drainage construc-tion," Chan said.
Chan said the park administration gave the township office NT$1.5 million this year for construction projects to beautify the landscape. The drainage canal, which cost about NT$100,000, was one such project. However, the poor quality of the construction disappointed not only conservationists but also park officials.
Chan said that workshops for construction designers and engineers will be held next year to avoid similar tragedies.
"If they cannot design their projects based on ecological concerns, we won't support any construction inside the park," Chan said.
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) mention of Taiwan’s official name during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Wednesday was likely a deliberate political play, academics said. “As I see it, it was intentional,” National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies professor Wang Hsin-hsien (王信賢) said of Ma’s initial use of the “Republic of China” (ROC) to refer to the wider concept of “the Chinese nation.” Ma quickly corrected himself, and his office later described his use of the two similar-sounding yet politically distinct terms as “purely a gaffe.” Given Ma was reading from a script, the supposed slipup
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
The bodies of two individuals were recovered and three additional bodies were discovered on the Shakadang Trail (砂卡礑) in Taroko National Park, eight days after the devastating earthquake in Hualien County, search-and-rescue personnel said. The rescuers reported that they retrieved the bodies of a man and a girl, suspected to be the father and daughter from the Yu (游) family, 500m from the entrance of the trail on Wednesday. The rescue team added that despite the discovery of the two bodies on Friday last week, they had been unable to retrieve them until Wednesday due to the heavy equipment needed to lift