Mainland Affairs Council Chairwoman Lai Shin-yuan (賴幸媛) said yesterday it was wrong for the secretariat of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) to describe the importation of two giant pandas from China as a “domestic trade.”
CITES Secretary Juan Carlos Vasquez said on Monday that in accordance with UN policy, the transporting of the two pandas to Taiwan would be a matter of “internal or domestic trade” and as such did not need to be reported to CITES.
Lai yesterday said she could not dictate what CITES says about the matter, but that it was not correct to say that the importation of the two animals was domestic.
“Besides, [the pandas] must go through customs. Why would they need to do that if it were a domestic trade?” she said.
Lai said the legal documents concerning the export and import of the animals were based on CITES regulations and international practice.
Precedents had been set by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) administration when endangered herbs were imported from China.
Asked whether Taiwan would file a complaint with CITES over the matter, Lai said clearing things up should not be a problem. However, Taiwan is not a UN member and it was beyond the country’s power to tell the organization what to do, she said.
Straits Exchange Foundation Deputy Chairman Kao Koong-lian (高孔廉) on Tuesday said the animals never had anything to do with CITES.
Kao said that during negotiations with China, both sides reached a consensus that they would follow the precedent set by the DPP administration in 2002 and 2003. In other words, the import had to comply with Chinese regulations on the export and import of endangered flora and fauna, he said.
Kenting National Park service technician Yang Jien-fon (楊政峰) won a silver award in World Grand Prix Photography Awards Spring Season for his photograph of two male rat snakes intertwined in combat. Yang’s colleagues at Kenting National Park said he is a master of nature photography who has been held back by his job in civil service. The awards accept entries in all four seasons across six categories: architectural and urban photography, black-and-white and fine art photography, commercial and fashion photography, documentary and people photography, nature and experimental photography, and mobile photography. Awards are ranked according to scores and divided into platinum, gold and
More than half of the bamboo vipers captured in Tainan in the past few years were found in the city’s Sinhua District (新化), while other districts had smaller catches or none at all. Every year, Tainan captures about 6,000 snakes which have made their way into people’s homes. Of the six major venomous snakes in Taiwan, the cobra, the many-banded krait, the brown-spotted pit viper and the bamboo viper are the most frequently captured. The high concentration of bamboo vipers captured in Sinhua District is puzzling. Tainan Agriculture Bureau Forestry and Nature Conservation Division head Chu Chien-ming (朱健明) earlier this week said that the
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus yesterday said it opposes the introduction of migrant workers from India until a mechanism is in place to prevent workers from absconding. Minister of Labor Hung Sun-han (洪申翰) on Thursday told the Legislative Yuan that the first group of migrant workers from India could be introduced as early as this year, as part of a government program. The caucus’ opposition to the policy is based on the assessment that “the risk is too high,” KMT caucus secretary-general Lin Pei-hsiang (林沛祥) said. Taiwan has a serious and long-standing problem of migrant workers absconding from their contracts, indicating that
SPACE VETERAN: Kjell N. Lindgren, who helps lead NASA’s human spaceflight missions, has been on two expeditions on the ISS and has spent 311 days in space Taiwan-born US astronaut Kjell N. Lindgren is to visit Taiwan to promote technological partnerships through one of the programs organized by the US for its 250th national anniversary. Lindgren would be in Taiwan from Tuesday to Saturday next week as part of the US Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs’ US Speaker Program, organized to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) said in a statement yesterday. Lindgren plans to engage with key leaders across the nation “to advance cutting-edge technological partnerships and inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers,”
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