The National Freeway Bureau is scheduled to brief the Executive Yuan next month about its “freeway green corridor” project, which is proposed in part to honor film director Chi Po-lin (齊柏林), who drew attention to environmental problems in his documentary Beyond Beauty: Taiwan from Above (看見台灣).
The presentation would cover the problems identified in the documentary and explain how the bureau plans to incorporate environmental protection into its planning for freeway construction, the bureau said.
Taiwan has a complicated and fragile environment, but it does not mean that no construction can be done under such circumstances, Minister of Transportation and Communications Hochen Tan (賀陳旦) said.
“Construction projects should be undertaken after we learn about the environment and try to handle it with extra caution, particularly in choosing appropriate freeway routes and in maintaining freeways,” he said.
“The project would not only be a plan to balance freeway construction with the issues of drainage, agriculture and preservation of the ecosystem. It would also be done in remembrance of Mr Chi, who saw both the wonders and sadness of Taiwan from a higher ground,” Hochen added.
The nation’s development was moving in the east-west axis before freeways were built, the direction in which the nation’s rivers flow and its animals move, bureau Director-General Chao Hsin-hua (趙興華) said.
The freeways and railways were built along the north-south axis, which had to cut through animals’ habitats, he said.
The project would find a way for freeways and the ecosystem to coexist, Chao said.
The bureau has built many eco-passages along the Formosa Freeway (Freeway No. 3) because leopard cats and other animals would encroach on roads along the route, Chao said.
However, the freeway section in Yunlin County would be closed if there is a surge in the number of milkweed butterflies, which fly above the traffic with the safety nets installed along the road, Chao added.
Chi has detailed records about the construction on Freeway No. 3, in which he used aerial photographs to show how the environment was affected by the construction, Chao said.
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