A number of civic environmental groups yesterday said they will jointly hold a rally in Taipei on Saturday in a bid to attract more public attention to the issue of the Miramar Resort Village on Taitung County’s Shanyuan Beach (杉原沙灘).
The rally is to commence with a parade starting in Taipei’s Xinyi District (信義) before converging on Ketagalan Boulevard in front of the Presidential Office, where a music event will be staged until midnight.
The groups said that although lawsuits filed against the Miramar Resort Village project by civic groups were successful in court, the county government still allowed the construction plan to pass an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) in December last year.
The resort’s managment also announced it will hold a free beach festival on May 1, indicating that the complex is going into operation, the groups added.
A group of activists set off on a protest journey on foot from Shanyuan Beach on April 4 and plan to reach the Presidential Office in Taipei on Saturday, after walking more than 265km over the course of 17 days.
Tsai Chung-yueh (蔡中岳), a branch office director at Citizen of the Earth, Taiwan, said everyone is welcome to join the activists in walking the final 4.2km of the journey to express their opposition to the hotel’s construction.
The groups’ demands include that the government tear down the Miramar Resort Village, give back clean natural beaches to the Taiwanese public rather than selling them to corporations, and to protect the oceanic ecosystem, such as coral and green sea turtles.
Chen Kei-mei (陳凱眉) from the Wild at Heart Legal Defense Association said the issue is of national concern because the original intention of enacting the EIA Act has been violated if the developer can begin construction before gaining approval and neglecting the Supreme Administrative Court’s final verdicts.
The Taiwan Environmental Information Association added that research has shown that the coral coverage rate off Shanyuan Beach has dropped from 38 percent in 2009 to 27 percent last year, and that the construction project can directly impact coral by covering it with soil washed into the ocean.
EXPANSIONIST: China deploys an average of 40 to 50 warships and coast guard vessels daily in the South China Sea, despite pledges not to militarize the region, an official said China is attempting to expand its influence across the First Island Chain and increase pressure on Japan by sending coast guard vessels into waters off of Taiwan under the pretext of maritime negotiations with Japan and the Philippines, a national security official said yesterday. China’s recent actions in the waters east of Taiwan and Japan and the Philippines’ exclusive economic zones (EEZ) are attempts to establish dominance in First Island Chain waters, said the official who declined to be named, adding that this is “expansion disguised as law enforcement.” Framing China’s actions solely as a cross-strait issue is a serious misjudgment that
Through analyzing fossil evidence, a research team at National Taiwan University (NTU) discovered the largest endemic bird to have lived in Taiwan, naming it Pavo miejue, or extinct peafowl (滅絕孔雀). The Mikado pheasant, which is printed on the back of the NT$1,000 bank note, was previously believed to be the biggest endemic bird to Taiwan. The research team’s findings suggest that Pavo miejue lived during the Pleistocene epoch tens of thousands of years ago. It is the first endemic extinct bird species discovered and formally named in Taiwan. The study was coauthored by NTU Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修),
Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport is to suspend its automated Skytrain service connecting Terminal 1 and Terminal 2 starting on July 1 to facilitate connection works for the upcoming Terminal 3, the airport operator said today. Passengers and staff who need to travel between the two terminals after the suspension can instead use the Taoyuan MRT or the airport's 24-hour shuttle bus service, Taoyuan International Airport Corp said. The Taoyuan MRT Airport Line directly links the two terminals, while the shuttle buses are to operate around the clock, the company added. The Skytrain provides free transportation between the airport’s two terminals for travelers and
Taiwan ranked 42nd in terms of peacefulness among 163 countries, down five places from last year, according to this year’s Global Peace Index. With an overall score of 1.751, Taiwan dropped from 37th last year, the report published by the global Institute for Economics and Peace showed. The overall score measures a country’s level of peacefulness using 23 quantitative and qualitative indicators across three domains — ongoing domestic and international conflict, societal safety and security, and militarization. While Taiwan ranked 42nd worldwide, it was listed in ninth place among the 19 Asian-Pacific countries in the report, after New Zealand, Singapore, Japan, Malaysia,
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