Forest ranger Lin Chien-chih (林建志) is so committed to protecting the country’s forests that he puts his personal safety on the line by lying in wait in the woods to catch illegal loggers.
Through his dedication, the 47-year-old employee of the Forestry Bureau’s Taitung Forest District Office uncovered 37 cases of illegal logging last year — more than any other forest ranger in the country — and on Monday he was recognized for his efforts.
The Forestry Bureau recognized him as an outstanding forest ranger and honored his contributions to the preservation of the nation’s forests by uncovering hundreds of illegal logging cases over the past few years.
Photo: CNA
To track down illegal loggers, Lin said it was normal for him to lie in wait for two or three days at a time in the forest, sleeping in his car, and living on instant noodles and wild plants.
However, his dedication to the job has made him some enemies.
When working on a case in the Chihpen (知本) area in Taitung last month, Lin said illegal loggers attempted to hit him with their cars.
Fortunately, he managed to dodge the attack and came through unscathed. However, Lin did sustain some minor injuries during a similar incident last year.
He added that so far he has successfully avoided serious injury from one of the frequent traps set up by illegal loggers to catch him.
On his commitment to his job, Lin said he often went into the mountains with his father when he was growing up and has developed “a special attachment to the mountains and trees.”
Lin’s sister and brother also work in the forest district office, following in their father’s footsteps.
“We are a family of foresters,” Lin said.
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) mention of Taiwan’s official name during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Wednesday was likely a deliberate political play, academics said. “As I see it, it was intentional,” National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies professor Wang Hsin-hsien (王信賢) said of Ma’s initial use of the “Republic of China” (ROC) to refer to the wider concept of “the Chinese nation.” Ma quickly corrected himself, and his office later described his use of the two similar-sounding yet politically distinct terms as “purely a gaffe.” Given Ma was reading from a script, the supposed slipup
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
The bodies of two individuals were recovered and three additional bodies were discovered on the Shakadang Trail (砂卡礑) in Taroko National Park, eight days after the devastating earthquake in Hualien County, search-and-rescue personnel said. The rescuers reported that they retrieved the bodies of a man and a girl, suspected to be the father and daughter from the Yu (游) family, 500m from the entrance of the trail on Wednesday. The rescue team added that despite the discovery of the two bodies on Friday last week, they had been unable to retrieve them until Wednesday due to the heavy equipment needed to lift