The Chinese Nationalist Party's (KMT) presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said yesterday that he would promote large scale forestation of fallow farmland in Chiayi and Tainan if he is elected next year.
In a visit to Tainan County's Wusanto Reservoir (烏山頭水庫), Ma said he proposed the idea as a measure to help the country's carbon dioxide emissions meet Kyoto Protocol standards.
The Kyoto protocol states that the amount of carbon dioxide emissions of industrialized countries between next year and 2012 should be lower than their emission in 1999 by at least 5 percent.
PHOTO: LIU WAN-CHUN, TAIPEI TIMES
A study by the Environmental Protection Administration has suggested that the 11.9 tonnes of carbon dioxide emitted per capita annually in Taiwan in 2005 ranked third-highest in the world.
change
"Unless we change our ecological environment on a large scale, it will be impossible for us to meet the standards," Ma said. "Forestation is the best solution."
If Taiwan cannot meet the standards in the future then we will suffer global economic sanctions, he said.
Ma said about 220,000 hectares out of Taiwan's 970,000 hectares of farmland is now fallow, saying that he would like to create 50,000 hectares of forest in Tainan and Chiayi.
He said that such a forestation plan is an important and positive strategy for the nation in the next three decades to deal with issues such as water conservation and land utilization.
prevent floods
"Preventing floods by water control is a long term job. It requires massive manpower, material resources and sound planning," Ma said.
He said the plan is expected to cost between NT$6 billion (US$183 million) and NT$8 billion and would reduce the nation's carbon dioxide emissions by 140 million tonnes per year.
During his visit Ma also paid tribute to the statue of Yoichi Hatta, the late Japanese civil engineer who planned and oversaw the construction in the 1920s of the irrigation system that spreads across the plains of Chiayi and Tainan.
contribution
Ma lauded Hatta's contribution, saying that the completion of the irrigation project had helped improve the rice crop in Chiayi and Tainan.
Meanwhile in related news, Ma's Democratic Progressive Party counterpart Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) met with President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), running mate Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) and campaign manager Yeh Chu-lan (葉菊蘭) separately yesterday.
When approached for comments yesterday morning, Hsieh declined to give details of what they talked about.
Starlux Airlines, Taiwan’s newest international carrier, has announced it would apply to join the Oneworld global airline alliance before the end of next year. In an investor conference on Monday, Starlux Airlines chief executive officer Glenn Chai (翟健華) said joining the alliance would help it access Taiwan. Chai said that if accepted, Starlux would work with other airlines in the alliance on flight schedules, passenger transits and frequent flyer programs. The Oneworld alliance has 13 members, including American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Qantas, and serves more than 900 destinations in 170 territories. Joining Oneworld would also help boost
A new tropical storm formed late yesterday near Guam and is to approach closest to Taiwan on Thursday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Tropical Storm Pulasan became the 14th named storm of the year at 9:25pm yesterday, the agency said. As of 8am today, it was near Guam traveling northwest at 21kph, it said. The storm’s structure is relatively loose and conditions for strengthening are limited, WeatherRisk analyst Wu Sheng-yu (吳聖宇) said on Facebook. Its path is likely to be similar to Typhoon Bebinca, which passed north of Taiwan over Japan’s Ryukyu Islands and made landfall in Shanghai this morning, he said. However, it
Taiwan's Gold Apollo Co (金阿波羅通信) said today that the pagers used in detonations in Lebanon the day before were not made by it, but by a company called BAC which has a license to use its brand. At least nine people were killed and nearly 3,000 wounded when pagers used by Hezbollah members detonated simultaneously across Lebanon yesterday. Images of destroyed pagers analyzed by Reuters showed a format and stickers on the back that were consistent with pagers made by Gold Apollo. A senior Lebanese security source told Reuters that Hezbollah had ordered 5,000 pagers from Taiwan-based Gold Apollo. "The product was not
COLD FACTS: ‘Snow skin’ mooncakes, made with a glutinous rice skin and kept at a low temperature, have relatively few calories compared with other mooncakes Traditional mooncakes are a typical treat for many Taiwanese in the lead-up to the Mid-Autumn Festival, but a Taipei-based dietitian has urged people not to eat more than one per day and not to have them every day due to their high fat and calorie content. As mooncakes contain a lot of oil and sugar, they can have negative health effects on older people and those with diabetes, said Lai Yu-han (賴俞含), a dietitian at Taipei Hospital of the Ministry of Health and Welfare. “The maximum you can have is one mooncake a day, and do not eat them every day,” Lai