Environmentalists yesterday protested against a move by the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) to legalize unlicensed factories on farmland, saying the measure is politically motivated and would only encourage pollution and property speculation.
Under a measure announced in September, unlicensed industrial establishments on land zoned for farming would be able to apply to the Ministry of the Interior to alter the zoning from farmland only to industrial property.
Environmentalists told a news conference at the Legislative Yuan that the measure was aimed at winning votes ahead of the Jan. 16 presidential and legislative elections and would only serve to legalize an illegal practice.
Photo: Chang Hsiao-ti, Taipei Times
About 700 establishments in 186 designated areas were eligible to apply for a change of land designation under the Factory Management Act (工廠管理輔導法) announced last year, but the new measure would open the door for up to 70,000 unlicensed factories nationwide — according to an estimate by the economics ministry in 2010 — as it extends to factories outside the 186 designated areas, Citizens of the Earth researcher Pan Cheng-cheng (潘正正) said.
Taiwan Rural Front spokesperson Chen Ping-hsuan (陳平軒) said that the appropriate response to unlicensed factories would be for them to demolish illegal structures built on farmland and move them to industrial parks, with the government levying a pollution and remediation tax on polluters, rather than legalizing unlicensed establishments.
The change of property designation could encourage speculation, as businesses could sell contaminated plots, Chen said.
The economics ministry has been negligent in regulating factories that are illegally operating on farmland and in trying to eliminate them, Chen said, adding that the new measure is tantamount to permitting illegal practices and pollution because it is too difficult to regulate.
Shih Yueh-ying (施月英), the secretary-general of the Changhua County Environmental Protection Union, said that a 2008 Changhua County Government report showed there were 8,623 unlicensed factories in the county, 3,878 of them on specially designated farmland, and legalizing those plants would mean the destruction of local agriculture.
Hsieh Meng-yu (謝孟羽), an attorney with the Wild at Heart Legal Defense Association, said that any legislation that would affect people’s rights must ensure due procedure is followed, such as pre-legislation information disclosure and post-legislation judicial remedy.
However, the economics ministry did not conduct any public hearings for local residents before announcing the measure, which was unconstitutional and infringed on people’s rights, Hsieh said.
Green Party-Social Democratic Party Alliance legislative candidate Thomas Chan (詹順貴) said that while the economics ministry stipulates that the new measure only applies to “low-polluting businesses,” it does not provide definition of pollution levels, but leaves the matter to the discretion of local governments.
Different governments have different standards, with some even listing asphalt factories as a low-polluting industry, he said.
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