More than 1,000 Taichung residents yesterday protested against a move by the Taichung City Government to allow Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) to relocate more than 150,000 trees on Dadu Mountain (大肚山) for the firm’s 18-inch wafer foundry in the Central Taiwan Science Park.
Braving the rain, the demonstrators called on the city government to block the tree relocation plan, saying that most trees relocated in the past to accommodate large construction projects have died.
They said that the move would impede carbon dioxide reduction and intensify global warming, adding that the move posed risks to the local ecology.
The Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) in March approved TSMC’s expansion plan, saying that forests on the expansion site were largely “artificial forests” and that relocating them would not threaten the ecology.
Under the EPA resolution, TSMC could relocate trees to carry out the expansion, as long as it replants them on the slope.
Taiwan Academy for Ecology secretary-general Tsai Chih-hao (蔡智豪) said the expansion would add an estimated 4.4 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions to Taichung’s annual emissions of 44.2 million tonnes.
The city’s emissions would then constitute about a thousandth of global emissions, Tsai said.
He said that carbon reduction is an immediate necessity, but that the city government has announced a reduction goal to limit only carbon dioxide generated by households and the tertiary sector, while ignoring carbon dioxide produced by industry.
Under the city’s reduction goal, which came into effect in 2012, Taichung residents would be able to cut carbon dioxide emissions by an estimated 3.23 million tonnes by 2020, he said.
The TSMC plan would cripple efforts to cut emissions, and result in increased emissions, he said.
Citing Taiwan Academy of Ecology research, Tsai said the estimate of 150,000 trees — a calculation by the Taiwan Tree Protection Union — understates the environmental impact the plant expansion is expected to cause.
The actual number of trees expected to be affected would be closer to 1.21 million, if tree buds and smaller trees are taken into account, he said.
He responded to the EPA’s claim that replanting large numbers of trees would not have an ecological impact, by saying that findings in decade-long research by his organization on the flora and fauna on Dadu Mountain suggest otherwise.
He urged Taichung Mayor Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) to resist policies that promote pollution-intensive developments and to instead focus on Taichung’s cultural importance and tourism.
TSMC said that, based on the chipmaker’s calculations, there are 20,000 trees, including saplings, in the 53-hectare newly developed industrial area, rather than 150,000 as reported.
Of the 20,000 trees, TSMC plans to relocate about 5,400 and plant 3,800 new trees there. That would help boost carbon sequestration in the area by 10 percent, it said.
In addition to TSMC, the nation’s biggest bicycle maker, Giant Manufacturing Co, also plans to build a new factory there.
Additional reporting by Lisa Wang
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