Yunlin County plans to invite cyclists to plant trees as a way of honoring Mother Nature around Mother’s Day, Yunlin County Commissioner Su Chih-fen (蘇治芬) said.
Thousands of cyclists will be invited to participate in a 26.5km bike ride on May 5, one week before Mother’s Day, and to plant trees along the way, Su said.
The event will also celebrate the 60th anniversary of the opening of Siluo Bridge, which spans Jhuoshuei River (濁水溪), the nation’s longest river, the commissioner said.
“It will be a good opportunity to raise environmental awareness because the river is like a mother to Yunlin residents,” she said.
Su said the county would host a banquet on the bridge after the bike ride for the cyclists.
Meanwhile, a local civic group that has been planting trees around the nation said it would sponsor the event to help spread the message of environmental protection.
HIMA Foundation chairman Wender Yang (楊文德), a UN Environment Program participant in its “Plant for the Planet” project, said the foundation was happy to share its tree-planting experience and expertise with the participating cyclists.
Yang said the foundation would prepare seeds of camphor laurels and banyan trees, which are common in Taiwan, and assist participants by providing step-by-step instructions.
“If each of us plants a tree, there will be enough shade in the future for people to take a rest,” he said, adding that he hopes the tree-planting event helps to teach younger generations to care for and respect others.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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