A government plan to install solar panels near a coastal wetland would not affect the natural habitat of endangered winter migratory birds, the Chiayi County Government said on Sunday in response to a report claiming the plan was driving birds away.
The solar panels would not be installed within the legally defined boundary of the Budai Salt Pan Wetlands (布袋鹽田濕地), as the area and surrounding salt fields are an important habitat of the endangered black-faced spoonbill, the county’s Agriculture Department deputy head Lee Chien-lin (李建霖) said.
A meeting with the Ministry of the Interior and wetland experts determined that the panel installations would be limited to four plots of land — a total of 102 hectares — to preserve the birds’ natural habitat, Lee said.
The statement was released after the Chinese-language United Daily News reported that black-faced spoonbills are disappearing from the wetlands because of excavation and construction for the solar panel project.
The United Daily News quoted conservationists as saying that since excavators began digging up land to install the panels, spoonbill numbers have dwindled, as the birds have gone elsewhere in search of food.
The project is being developed in line with the country’s determination to promote green energy, with the land provided by the Ministry of Finance’s National Property Administration for development in collaboration with the county, the county government said in a statement.
However, the Chiayi Ecological Conservation Association questioned whether the county government is protecting the environment.
The association said it hoped that more people would show concern for the spoonbill and other migratory birds by protecting their wetland habitat.
There are only an estimated 4,463 black-faced spoonbills left in the world, and Taiwan offers them one of their biggest wintering sites, according to the Web site of the migratory waterbirds protection group East Asian-Australasian Flyway Partnership.
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,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods