The Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) yesterday ordered that an application by Rich Mineral Co to start mining in Hualien County’s Sioulin Township (秀林) must undergo a second-stage environmental impact assessment (EIA) over concerns about the damage mining activities could cause local flora and fauna.
The application proposed expanding a 7 hectare Dajhuoshuei (大濁水) mining site previously granted by the Bureau of Mines to 39.8 hectares, which Rich Mineral representatives said would help the company generate a combined output of about 450,000 tonnes of marble annually.
Since the proposed expansion would take place in a natural forest, problems manifested themselves as soon as the EIA meeting began.
Despite Rich Mineral representatives saying that during plant restoration, they had posted a fauna survival rate of more than 70 percent — as it promised — EIA committee member Chien Lien-kwei (簡連貴) said the results of the firm’s fauna restoration efforts were sliding each year.
The main source of contention came when the participants discussed the detrimental effects noises from mining-related explosions would have on a dozen protected animal species inhabiting the mining site, which include the Japalura ruei, crested serpent eagles (Spilornis cheela) and Taiwanese serows (Capricornis serow), most of which are native to Taiwan.
Committee member Chang Hsueh-wen (張學文) said that research he conducted showed that 87.7 percent of flora and 80 percent of fauna found in the plot are native to Taiwan, while his colleague Chang Tien-chin (張添晉) urged Rich Mineral to justify in its EIA report the explosions it wants to carry out.
Chang Hsueh-wen said that the noises caused by the explosions would frighten the animals, as would the damage to their environment.
In response, Rich Mineral representatives said that once damage to the animals’ habitat has been restored, all the animals would return, and that the company would seek ways to use fewer explosions, for example, by increasing the concentration of dynamite used.
However, committee member Lung Shih-chun (龍世俊) later referred to a satellite image that showed that a 4.3 hectare area in which Rich Mineral said it had conducted reforestation exhibited a very light shade of green, indicating that plants restored in the mine’s surrounding areas were mostly grass.
Despite the company’s promise to reduce explosions, the committee resolved to reject the application and ordered that it undergo a second-stage EIA, during which the company is to broaden the scope of its assessment of the potential impact mining could cause the local ecology to an area south of the mining site, as well as propose a feasible plan to restore plant species native to Taiwan.
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,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods