Cooperating with Taipei’s Environmental Protection Bureau may seem dull at first glance — calling in noticeable pollution, trash in the river and dead fish — but one man decided to spruce things up by collaborating with local community colleges in an effort to teach people the importance of environmental protection and why he was helping out.
At 68, Wang Sheng-chin (王勝欽) heads the Keelung River Sigau Volunteer Patrol Team that he founded and has devoted himself to volunteer work for 13 years.
“I [previously] devoted my entire life to my job and even became a director of internal affairs at an airline,” Wang said.
Photo: Chen Wei-tzu, Taipei Times
“Being hit by acute appendicitis made the transience of life startlingly clear, and I took it as a sign from ‘on high’ that I should retire and live the life I want,” Wang said, adding that after his illness he embarked on a new chapter of his life.
However, Wang said that his redirection was not an easy path, and when he retired in 2001 — the year the central government passed the Voluntary Service Act (志願服務法) — he was surprised that examinations were required for would-be volunteers.
Wang said that it was during the process of gathering data for the examinations that he realized that, despite his many years of living in Taipei, he was a complete stranger to the city’s environment and landscape.
“How could I hope to give back to society when I knew nothing of the environment in which I lived?” Wang asked.
Founding the Keelung River Sigau Volunteer Patrol Team in 2008 with others sharing his interest, Wang began collaborating with the bureau to conserve the environment along the Keelung River (基隆河).
The word “sigau” comes from the Ketagalan people, signifying a favored hunting ground of the tribe in the past and being the word for “river bend.”
The team’s average age is about 60, with about 20 members, who focus their conservation efforts on the stretch of the Keelung River between Chengmei Bridge and the Dazhi (大直) area.
Wang bikes along the river, looking out for any changes in river ecology, such as large pieces of litter, dead fish or pollution.
“People fishing in the Keelung River and the fish they catch are good indicators of pollution levels,” Wang said.
Wang said that in heavily polluted waters, Mozambique tilapia are most often caught, and in waters with medium levels of pollution, fishermen often find either Prussian carp or flathead mullet.
Lightly polluted waters tend to yield Opsariichthys pachycephalus and grouper, while non-polluted waters offer up Onychostoma alticorpus, Wang said.
Sadly, people fishing in the river only manage to get Prussian carp on the best of days, Wang said.
Working with the bureau, Wang quickly realized that its methods lacked inspiration and could easily lead to monotony, so he took the initiative to collaborate with Songshan Community College to better educate local people and motivate his team.
If people became more attached to the river through learning its history and the culture of the people living nearby, they would become more motivated to protect it, Wang said.
Short tours focusing on ecological conservation along the Keelung River and the historical-cultural symbolism of the Sigau area have been scheduled since March last year, Wang said.
The development of Songshan District (松山) was closely tied to Sigau Port on the Keelung River, Wang said.
Though the tours have mainly been in cooperation with community college events, Wang hopes to formalize the trips into a set, monthly event, he said.
Through classes on the history of rivers at the community college and tours of riverside sights — especially the giant’s kettles that dotted the shores — Wang said he hoped more people would become interested in conserving their environment.
Wang lamented the direction of Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin’s (郝龍斌) policies, saying that the emphasis on reinvigorating business and tourism along the Tamsui River ignored the wider picture.
The Tamsui River cuts through three of Taipei’s administrative districts — Datong (大同), Shihlin (士林) and Wanhua (萬華) — while the Keelung meanders through seven — Nangang (南港), Neihu (內湖), Songshan, Zhongshan (中山), Shihlin District, Datong and Beitou (北投) — Wang said.
The city government should make redevelopment and conservation of the Keelung River its priority instead, as the river encompasses more than half of Taipei’s administrative districts, Wang said.
An increase in Taiwanese boats using China-made automatic identification systems (AIS) could confuse coast guards patrolling waters off Taiwan’s southwest coast and become a loophole in the national security system, sources familiar with the matter said yesterday. Taiwan ADIZ, a Facebook page created by enthusiasts who monitor Chinese military activities in airspace and waters off Taiwan’s southwest coast, on Saturday identified what seemed to be a Chinese cargo container ship near Penghu County. The Coast Guard Administration went to the location after receiving the tip and found that it was a Taiwanese yacht, which had a Chinese AIS installed. Similar instances had also
GOOD DIPLOMACY: The KMT has maintained close contact with representative offices in Taiwan and had extended an invitation to Russia as well, the KMT said The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) would “appropriately handle” the fallout from an invitation it had extended to Russia’s representative to Taipei to attend its international banquet last month, KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) said yesterday. US and EU representatives in Taiwan boycotted the event, and only later agreed to attend after the KMT rescinded its invitation to the Russian representative. The KMT has maintained long-term close contact with all representative offices and embassies in Taiwan, and had extended the invitation as a practice of good diplomacy, Chu said. “Some EU countries have expressed their opinions of Russia, and the KMT respects that,” he
VIGILANCE: The military is paying close attention to actions that might damage peace and stability in the region, the deputy minister of national defense said The People’s Republic of China (PRC) might consider initiating a hack on Taiwanese networks on May 20, the day of the inauguration ceremony of president-elect William Lai (賴清德), sources familiar with cross-strait issues said. While US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s statement of the US expectation “that all sides will conduct themselves with restraint and prudence in the period ahead” would prevent military actions by China, Beijing could still try to sabotage Taiwan’s inauguration ceremony, the source said. China might gain access to the video screens outside of the Presidential Office Building and display embarrassing messages from Beijing, such as congratulating Lai
Four China Coast Guard ships briefly sailed through prohibited waters near Kinmen County, Taipei said, urging Beijing to stop actions that endanger navigation safety. The Chinese ships entered waters south of Kinmen, 5km from the Chinese city of Xiamen, at about 3:30pm on Monday, the Coast Guard Administration said in a statement later the same day. The ships “sailed out of our prohibited and restricted waters” about an hour later, the agency said, urging Beijing to immediately stop “behavior that endangers navigation safety.” Ministry of National Defense spokesman Sun Li-fang (孫立方) yesterday told reporters that Taiwan would boost support to the Coast Guard