Environmental protection groups yesterday held water resources protection campaign activities across the nation to mark World Water Day, which falls on Wednesday.
The Taiwan Water Resources Protection Union performed a skit in front of Taipei City Hall to demand that Taipei City government ramp up its efforts to protect water resources, particularly the Feitsui Reservoir (翡翠水庫), and to oppose a proposed direct railway line development between Taipei and Yilan that would bisect the reservoir’s catchment area.
Saying that the reservoir’s water — which supplies nearly 6 million people in the Greater Taipei area — is the best in Taiwan, union director Jennifer Nien (粘麗玉) urged the government to attach greater importance to its quality and not to allow a railway line to disturb it.
This year there has been little rainfall in most of Taiwan, but the Feitsui Reservoir is still at more than 80 percent capacity, while water levels in the majority of the nation’s reservoirs have fallen to between 40 percent and 50 percent capacity, Tsaoshan Ecology, Culture and History Alliance president Wen Hai-chen (文海珍) said.
Feitsui Reservoir has benefited from the normal levels of precipitation in the Greater Taipei area and its better design to conserve water, Wen said, adding that the government should not allow the Taipei-Yilan railway line to pass through its catchment area, just to save passengers a few minutes of traveling time.
Other environmental groups held similar events across the nation to highlight the importance of protecting water resources
Advocates from scores of environmental protection groups delivered a petition to the Central Taiwan Division of the Water Resources Agency and water authorities in Taichung and Tainan, demanding that the water quality of local reservoirs be ensured by protecting their water catchment areas.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching