People can now easily enjoy the beauty and serenity of numerous wetlands around Taiwan thanks to the endeavors of local photographers, the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) said yesterday.
To encourage people to embrace wetlands, the EPA recently co-hosted a wetland photography contest with the Taipei County Government. Yesterday 31 winning photographs from a total of 1,851 entries were unveiled at an award ceremony.
“In the past, floating particle indexes for many of Taipei’s rivers registered at more than 10,000, but now they are less than 100. Now that the rivers are cleaned up, we want people to go near them to see the revitalized ecosystems,” EPA Minister Stephen Shen (沈世宏) said.
Taipei County plans to construct a total of 300 hectares of wetlands, making the county home to the largestf wetland area in Asia, Taipei County Commissioner Chou Hsi-wei (周錫瑋) said.
“When that is complete, a quarter of Taipei County’s domestic wastewater can be processed by wetlands … In the future we want to aim for half, because we want to use the forces of nature to process our wastewater,” he said.
In addition to filtering wastewater, successful construction of wetlands also boost the environmental well-being of river systems, Chou said.
“Many fish and birds that have been gone for decades are now returning. It is as if we are back to the good old days,” Chou said.
Yesterday’s biggest winner was Hsiao Shi-jung (蕭世榮), who not only won the top prize, but also had five pictures that received honorable mentions. He said he wanted viewers of his photographs to be inspired to take walks in nature.
Speaking of his experience taking pictures in Chiayi’s Minghua Wetland (明華濕地), the professional photographer from Yunlin County said wetlands are most beautiful at the crack of dawn and at sunset.
“When the weather is nice, you can also see Nantou’s Mount Shanlinhsi (杉林溪), and Chiayi’s Meishan (梅山) from afar, which is poetic and picturesque,” he said.
The winning photographs will be exhibited in the Taipei County Government lobby from Aug. 3 to Aug. 9, in Kaohsiung’s Zuoying MRT Station from Sept. 1 to Sept. 7 and in Taichung’s Mitsukoshi Department Store from Sept. 9 to Sept. 15.
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