Environmentalists yesterday accused the Forestry Bureau of attempting to demote protected state-owned land as part of the requirements imposed by the National Land Planning Act (國土計畫法), potentially leading to landslides and the destruction of forests due to construction projects.
The land development bill would involve demoting vast tracts of class 1 protected state-owned land to class 2 protected land, meaning that developers would be able to carry out construction projects in vast tracts of forests as long as they obtain the government’s permission, Taiwan Water Resources Protection Union director Jennifer Nien (粘麗玉) told a news conference in Taipei.
The bureau is attempting to exclude some forests from class 1 protected areas, she said, citing the results of a September 2016 survey by the bureau which said that only 5,150 hectares of land on 981,345 hectares of forested hills nationwide required protection, and that 90,881 hectares had yet to be surveyed.
Photo: CNA
The survey results are included in the bill drafted by the Ministry of the Interior, which leads Nien to believe that the bureau would lift the development ban on at least 100,000 hectares of forest should the bill be passed, she said.
Hsu Yu-hung (徐玉紅), an opponent of land expropriations in the construction of the National Taiwan Sport University Mass Rapid Transit Station, said she is against the bureau’s plan to ease the regulations, which would allow construction to be carried out in the catchment basins of hills with an incline of 30? or less.
The relaxing of regulations would exacerbate sedimentation in reservoirs, hurt soil and water conservation efforts, and increase the threat of landslides, Hsu said.
Taoyuan Local Union director-general Pan Chong-cheng (潘忠政) criticized the ministry for including the construction of a natural gas terminal in the bill, which states that the terminal is to be built “in an 232 hectare site in Taoyuan.”
The industrial park is located on a coast teeming with endangered algal reefs, which he has been trying to preserve for years, Pan said.
Even though the ministry did not explicitly say that it intends to build the terminal in Taoyuan’s Kuantang Industrial Park (觀塘工業區), the size of the “site” corresponds with the size of the industrial park, suggesting that Kuantang is the proposed construction site, he said.
The project is being reviewed after the Environmental Protection Administration in October last year rejected a request for a development permit for a failure to propose sufficient protection measures for corals and algal reefs in the waters near Taoyuan’s Datan area (大潭).
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Liu Chien-kuo (劉建國), who also attended the conference, called on Premier William Lai (賴清德) and Council of Agriculture Minister Lin Tsung-hsien (林聰賢) to explain why the bureau has proposed demoting class 1 protection areas, saying that increased construction on hills and in forests would remove vegetation and displace soil, creating airborne particulates and worsening air pollution.
Kenting National Park service technician Yang Jien-fon (楊政峰) won a silver award in World Grand Prix Photography Awards Spring Season for his photograph of two male rat snakes intertwined in combat. Yang’s colleagues at Kenting National Park said he is a master of nature photography who has been held back by his job in civil service. The awards accept entries in all four seasons across six categories: architectural and urban photography, black-and-white and fine art photography, commercial and fashion photography, documentary and people photography, nature and experimental photography, and mobile photography. Awards are ranked according to scores and divided into platinum, gold and
More than half of the bamboo vipers captured in Tainan in the past few years were found in the city’s Sinhua District (新化), while other districts had smaller catches or none at all. Every year, Tainan captures about 6,000 snakes which have made their way into people’s homes. Of the six major venomous snakes in Taiwan, the cobra, the many-banded krait, the brown-spotted pit viper and the bamboo viper are the most frequently captured. The high concentration of bamboo vipers captured in Sinhua District is puzzling. Tainan Agriculture Bureau Forestry and Nature Conservation Division head Chu Chien-ming (朱健明) earlier this week said that the
The first bluefin tuna of the season, brought to shore in Pingtung County and weighing 190kg, was yesterday auctioned for NT$10,600 (US$333.5) per kilogram, setting a record high for the local market. The auction was held at the fish market in Donggang Fishing Harbor, where the Siaoliouciou Island-registered fishing vessel Fu Yu Ching No. 2 delivered the “Pingtung First Tuna” it had caught for bidding. Bidding was intense, and the tuna was ultimately jointly purchased by a local restaurant and a local company for NT$10,600 per kilogram — NT$300 ,more than last year — for a total of NT$2.014 million. The 67-year-old skipper
BREACH OF CONTRACT: The bus operators would seek compensation and have demanded that the manufacturer replace the chips with ones that meet regulations Two bus operators found to be using buses with China-made chips are to demand that the original manufacturers replace the systems and provide compensation for breach of contract, the Veterans Affairs Council said yesterday. Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Michelle Lin (林楚茵) yesterday said that Da Nan Bus Co and Shin-Shin Bus Co Ltd have fielded a total of 82 buses that are using Chinese chips. The bus models were made by Tron-E, while the systems provider was CYE Electronics, Lin said. Lin alleged that the buses were using chips manufactured by Huawei subsidiary HiSilicon Co, which presents a national security risk if the
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