About 100 international workers and academics from more than 20 countries are attending the 10th Asia-Pacific Non-Governmental Organization’s (NGO) Environmental Conference, which opened in Taipei yesterday.
Almost 600 other participants also joined in discussions.
The conference’s inaugural meeting was in Bangkok in 1991 and it has been held every one to two years since.
It is now one of the most important international environmental forums to be held in the Asia--Pacific region.
This year, the conference is being hosted by a Taiwanese group, the Society of Wilderness, with topics such as environmental trusts, habitat conservation, high-tech pollution, green economies, environmental education, renewable energy and sustainable ecotourism up for discussion.
Ando Toshiko, a professor at Japan’s Saitama University and president of the Totoro Foundation, was invited to talk about his experiences establishing an environmental trust at Sayama Hills in metropolitan Tokyo.
Also invited was Ted Smith, coordinator of the International Campaign for Responsible Technology in the US, to discuss environmental and occupational health challenges in the global electronics industry.
During the opening ceremony, Asia-Pacific Environmental Council chairperson Isono Yayoi said the conference gave NGOs from different countries the opportunity to cooperate, but “there are still problems to be solved, such as serious water pollution, the shift to renewable energy and the need for an international framework to enhance environmental governance in Asia-Pacific countries.”
Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) Minister Stephen Shen (沈世宏) said “the environmental NGOs are probably the most active NGOs in Taiwan, of which there are more than 500. They not only draw attention to environmental issues and increase the public’s environmental awareness, but they also put pressure on the EPA and local environmental bureaus, and these pressures are certainly one of the major driving forces behind Taiwan’s environmental protections.”
New Public Construction Commission Minister Lee Hong-yuan (李鴻源) talked about ways to deal with global climate change.
“Global climate change is not a simple problem with a simple answer, so a strategy for dealing with climate change through sustainable development needs good science, clear policies and good communication,” Lee said
He added that public awareness and public engagement were very important.
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
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