Wed, Oct 23, 2002 page8

• Letter

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  Hikers deserve park rights

  In the last two weeks national parks and environment protection have both been in the limelight. This is to be welcomed, even though it was for negative reasons. At least it means that someone still cares.

  It is a pity that such a beautiful and sensitive ecosystem such as the Taroko-Hohuangshan reserve is really treated by the authorities like a neighborhood city park rather than a national park. Construction projects to cater for vehicular tourism are everywhere, and are growing.

  What has happened on the main peak of Hohuangshan is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg, but it serves as an appropriate example to make my point. Before the construction work by Taroko National Park, the whole peak was a concrete mishmash of old military buildings:,filthy and pestilent. The right solution would have been to destroy those buildings, restore the peak to its pristine condition and try to keep cellular phone radio base stations to a discreet minimum.

  Our national parks, given the crowded, over-developed nature of the island and the legacy of the KMT era (the plantations and commercial-ization of "high-altitude" cabbages, pears, apples, peaches in places like Wu-ling?Shueshan Park or Tayulin?Taroko Park) must be taken care of more carefully.

  In the name of environmental protection, hiking (usually a low-impact activity) is prohibited or restricted inside some parks, while ever increasing hectares of parkland are set aside for the farming of the above-mentioned produce, increasing in turn the pollution of rivers with herbicides, pesticides and fertilizers. Also at least three of the national parks -- Taroko, Yushan and Yangmingshan are traversed by main roads.

  So instead of traffic being encouraged to by-pass these areas, it streams through them, providing a window-view experience of nature. This kind of promotion of "easy-tourism" brings saturation, garbage and sewage management problems, air and water pollution, and water shortages to places that should conquer our hearts with their natural, wild beauty, not with parking lots, hotels and concrete buildings.

  This is particularly true of Yangmingshan. This unique environment in the backyard of Taipei is a jewel, or at least it should be. My mountain club was going to climb Huang Dzuei Mountain, one of the specially protected areas in the park. One day before we were supposed to begin our climb we received a call from the park's management office telling us that we could not in fact walk the trail, because, they said, they were going to build a hut-refuge in the area.

  If I am not mistaken, camping in Yangmingshan park is forbidden, because most of the trails involve less than a one-day hike, so if camping were permitted it would be uncontrollable and unbearable, due to the proximity to the greater Taipei area.

  So the question arises: what are they doing building a refuge-hut in a protected area? What does protection and conservation mean in the minds of the park managers? Maybe they didn't want us common citizens to see it until it is built? And then expect us to take a leave-it-alone attitude?

  Time is running out and our government still has no reasonable environmental policy. I hope that the National Park Administration is not like the forestry bureau before it, going to become the bete noir of the environment, an enemy that, disguised as a friend, scavenges and ravages it, instead of promoting environmental awareness, protecting the ecosystem, and promoting a down to earth dialogue with nature.

  Francisco Carin

  Taishan, Taipei
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