Environmental protection groups protested against a dredging operation at Niaoyu Port (鳥嶼港) in Penghu County, saying the sand pulled from the harbor and piled on a clearing might be blown out to sea and damage coral reefs.
At least 35,000m3 of sand has been dredged up and deposited on the eastern part of Penghu Beach, in Niaoyu Park.
The sand deposit could harm local ecology, as terns nest on the beach in the summer, the groups said, adding that northeasterly monsoon winds in the winter could blow the sand back into the sea, which could cause an ecological disaster if the sand settles on coral reefs.
Photo provided by a reader
The area in question is a sandbank and not an intertidal zone, Penghu County Public Works Department Director Tsai Chi-hsien (蔡淇賢) said, adding that the department, along with the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries and the National Property Administration, decided that depositing the sand in the area would have minimal effects on local ecology.
Tsai said the sand deposit at Niaoyu Port might be caused by changes in local hydrology.
However, sources said that the local hydrology was not only changing at Niaoyu Port, adding that Jibei Islet (吉貝嶼) was also seeing a buildup of sand on its beaches after building breakwaters.
Artificial structures might be the primary cause of the hydrological changes, the sources said, adding that natural occurrences, such as typhoons, might also play a part.
The county government’s primary focus would be working toward the conservation of extant intertidal zones and ensuring the protection of marine ecology in the area, the sources said.
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) mention of Taiwan’s official name during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Wednesday was likely a deliberate political play, academics said. “As I see it, it was intentional,” National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies professor Wang Hsin-hsien (王信賢) said of Ma’s initial use of the “Republic of China” (ROC) to refer to the wider concept of “the Chinese nation.” Ma quickly corrected himself, and his office later described his use of the two similar-sounding yet politically distinct terms as “purely a gaffe.” Given Ma was reading from a script, the supposed slipup
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,
The bodies of two individuals were recovered and three additional bodies were discovered on the Shakadang Trail (砂卡礑) in Taroko National Park, eight days after the devastating earthquake in Hualien County, search-and-rescue personnel said. The rescuers reported that they retrieved the bodies of a man and a girl, suspected to be the father and daughter from the Yu (游) family, 500m from the entrance of the trail on Wednesday. The rescue team added that despite the discovery of the two bodies on Friday last week, they had been unable to retrieve them until Wednesday due to the heavy equipment needed to lift