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FEATURE : Tainan County fights to save lagoon

By Ruth Wang
CNA
Saturday, Aug 30, 2008, Page 2

“It was heartbreaking to see such a beautiful sandbank covered with Styrofoam, all kinds of bottles and other trash.” — Lai Tung-ming, president of the Good Neighbor Foundation

A beach-cleaning drive in which 120 volunteers cleaned up trash from a sandbank in the Chiku lagoon in Tainan County last Sunday has highlighted the environmental threat to the area.

The volunteers, mobilized by the Taipei-based Good Neighbor Foundation, underwent two hours of training before taking boats to the sandbank to clear trash in scorching hot weather, in the hope of restoring the lagoon to a pristine state.

The lagoon, the nation’s largest, is located in the county’s Chiku Township (七股) on the west coast and is bounded by four offshore sandbanks, covering 1,600 hectares.

“The volume of garbage on the sandbank was far greater than I had imagined, and I was surprised to discover, based on our analysis of the trash, that a lot of it had washed up there from other countries,” said a volunteer surnamed Huang.

The lagoon and its sandbanks, which serve as a natural barrier along the county’s coastline and helps prevent flooding during heavy rains, host many wetland species such as crabs, oysters and clams, and are also the winter habitat of the migratory black-faced spoonbill.

“It was heartbreaking to see such a beautiful sandbank covered with Styrofoam, all kinds of bottles and other trash,” said Lai Tung-ming (賴東明), president of the foundation.

Chen Kun-ho (陳昆和), director of Chiku Township’s coastal protection association, said that manmade pollution in the area was not just an environmental problem.

“It also affects nearly 6,000 local fishermen’s means of livelihood,” Chen said.

The wetlands, abounding with flora and fauna, have played a significant role in the lives of local residents for hundreds of years, Chen said.

Pollution is not the only threat to the wetlands. Chen said the shrinking of the sandbanks further overshadowed the future of the lagoon.

Wind erosion and rains brought by tropical storms are the main cause of the shrinking sandbanks, he said, adding that tropical storms have increased in strength in recent years because of global climate change.

In an attempt to prevent erosion of the sand by northeasterly winds, the volunteers in the beach cleaning drive built a bamboo fence along the sandbank.

The county government’s efforts to save the lagoon’s resources and topography have been in effect for many years, Tainan County Commissioner Su Huan-chih (蘇煥智) said.

Su said he prevented industrialization of the area 10 years ago when he was a legislator and that the county government has over the past decade been trying to preserve the lagoon’s ecological resources by protecting the wetland species and migratory birds that make it their home.

The county government also launched an annual tourism and ecology promotion activity in the summer of 1997 to introduce the lagoon’s diverse ecology to the public in the hope of attracting more support for its preservation efforts.

People were invited to wade into the shallows to collect clams and to engage in water sports such as pedal boating and canoeing.

This year, the county government extended the activity for an additional two weeks because its popularity exceeded expectations, Su said.

The efforts of the county government to protect the lagoon have yielded some encouraging results, but the road ahead is still a long one, he said.

“Our challenge over the next 10 years will be how to save the shrinking sandbanks and prevent the topography from disappearing,” Su said.
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