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Groups eye heritage status for dam

“Can you think of another construction in Taiwan that is as remarkable as this [Wushantou] reservoir? I can’t.” — Hsu Kuang-hui, law professor at Taiwan Police College

Academics, farmers’ associations and several civic groups have launched a campaign to have the Wushantou Reservoir (烏山頭水庫) in Tainan County and its irrigation system added to UNESCO’s World Heritage list.

The reservoir was designed by Japanese civil engineer Hatta Yoichi and was completed in 1930 after 10 years of construction.

The dam has a capacity of 150 million cubic meters and can help irrigate 100,000 hectares of farmland through a network of irrigation channels with a total length of 16,000km in Chiayi and Tainan counties.

“The Chianan Plain [嘉南平原] is now the biggest rice production region in the country because of the Wushantou Reservoir,” said Hsu Kuang-hui (許光輝), a law professor at Taiwan Police College who proposed the campaign.

“Before the reservoir was built, there was only about 6,000 hectares of arable land in the region. Now there’s more than 100,000 hectares,” he said.

While most may not consider the reservoir an important structure, Hsu said it was important for Taiwanese

“Over the past 80 years since its completion, the Wushantou Reservoir has fed about four generations of Taiwanese,” he said. “It is likely that everyone who lives in Taiwan — including you and I — has eaten rice grown on the Chianan Plain with water from the Wushantou Reservoir.”

In fact, Hsu did not know about the significance of the reservoir until he saw how much local farmers appreciated Hatta’s contribution to the construction when he attended an annual gathering on May 8 — the day of Hatta’s death in 1942 — at the tomb of Hatta and his wife, Hatta Sotoyo, near the reservoir.

Hsu said he was more impressed when he learned the dam was constructed in an ­environment-friendly method using natural materials and designed for rotating farming that would extend the arable life of the earth.

“Can you think of another construction in Taiwan that is as remarkable as this reservoir? I can’t,” Hsu said.

However, since Taiwan is not a member of the UN and is therefore unable to submit the application, Hsu hoped Japan could do it.

“Of course the Japanese colonial government did many bad things to Taiwanese, but the reservoir is the sign of friendship between a Japanese civil engineer and Taiwanese farmers,” he said. “If the two countries work together to make it a World Heritage site, it would be a significant gesture of friendship between two countries and reconciliation for past mistakes.”

“I hope we could get 1 million people in each country to sign a petition to make the reservoir a World Heritage site. I know it’s very, very challenging, but we never know what will happen unless we try,” Hsu said.

National Taiwan University agronomy professor Warren Kuo (郭華倫), who is in charge of mobilizing support for the project, said the project had got off to a good start.

“Although we’ll officially launch the signature campaign in September, more than 100 farmers’ associations and civic groups across the country have already voiced support for the project and agreed to help,” Kuo said.

The petition can be downloaded at seed.agron.ntu.edu.tw/hatta.
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