On Feb. 26, a county affairs meeting in Miaoli County approved a draft self-government ordinance for the conservation of leopard cats. The departments that drafted the ordinance will urge the Miaoli County Council to deliberate it in May.
Last year, the Miaoli County Council and the Taichung City Council deliberated leopard cat protection ordinances, but remitted them to the proposing authorities. In both cases, councilors were worried that the proposals would impose unwanted restrictions on development projects.
However, there are plenty of examples from around the world of wildlife conservation boosting local economic development.
Miaoli County’s mascot, Maolimiaow (貓裏喵), is a leopard cat whose name is based on an old name for Miaoli. The Taichung World Flora Exposition is also using a family of leopard cats as mascots.
The task of formulating self-government ordinances should go beyond arguments about restrictions. It should involve more positive elements such as drawing up a leopard cat conservation plan, raising money for a conservation fund and working out how leopard cats and residents can coexist and prosper.
Hopefully, Taiwan can cherish its leopard cats as much as Japan does its Iriomote cats.
Some councilors are opposed to the part of the draft ordinance that tells government entities to establish an “ecological validation mechanism” for public works because they think it would be too restrictive. They fail to appreciate that such a mechanism would help reduce the risk of projects drawing protest when construction is under way. Contrary to what those councilors think, it would allow development projects to proceed more smoothly.
The system of environmental impact assessments seeks to manage end-of-pipe pollution at source. However, experience over the past few decades has been that by the time an assessment takes place, the project has gone through more than half of the required administrative processes. By that time, developers are generally unwilling to terminate the project. This leads to clashes that get overheated and end up as zero-sum games.
The ecological validation mechanism, which some local governments have implemented under pressure from civic groups, has affected road-building projects where the authorities have worked with teams of ecology experts during planning. This has resulted in the planned routes, inasmuch as possible, avoiding ecological hotspots (biotopes), or being designed in such a way as to reduce their impact.
A negative example is the construction of the Daan River Wetland Park in Miaoli County’s Jhuolan Township (卓蘭) where leopard cat activity had been detected. Unfortunately, the project badly damaged the leopard cats’ habitat with concrete structures, which ironically included a pond in the shape of a leopard cat. This led to construction being halted under pressure from public opinion, but by that time the project was already 80 to 90 percent finished.
In this age of electronic democracy, information spreads quickly. Government departments can no longer get away with pushing projects through recklessly with the mindset that once it is under way, it has to go ahead.
Academic research has already established the approximate boundaries of leopard cat habitats. The more funding that is put into this research, the more accurate the information will be, and the more precisely land planning and use can be managed.
The “ecological validation mechanism” would only offer soft suggestions. It would not have the power to veto a project. While it should not be seen it as a panacea and one cannot expect too much of it, there is also no need for councilors to worry needlessly and block the institution of what is meant to be a helpful decisionmaking tool.
If, over the 17 years that have passed since the Basic Environment Act (環境基本法) was drawn up in 2002, government entities at all levels had really established environmental information systems, as stipulated in Article 15 of the act, they could have clearly surveyed every unit of land in Taiwan. This would have given every developer a framework to follow. It would have made environmental assessments quicker and more efficient, and reduced economic costs and risk.
On Feb. 20, an environmental impact assessment committee in Taichung decided by an overwhelming majority that an application for a 20 hectare expansion of the Horng-Shee Tai-Ping Golf Course in Taichung should not go ahead. If the company that runs the golf course had known beforehand that there were leopard cats and black eagles in the vicinity, of course its owners would not have been so foolish as to bash their heads against a brick wall.
Leopard cats only live in lowlands and foothills below 1,500m above sea level, so their habitat overlaps considerably with that of humans. Money and resources should be invested in the few remaining areas where leopard cats are found to develop a new, green economy in which humans and leopard cats can coexist and thrive. It should not be a one-way process of restricting the public’s right to develop land and resources.
County and city government should do their duty by proposing leopard cat conservation plans. They should expand public-private partnerships in measures that non-governmental groups have already implemented fairly successfully, such as growing and marketing leopard cat-friendly rice, helping farmers mend chicken coops, filing reports on roadkill and so on.
These things should be embedded in county and city government department plans. Money for leopard cat conservation funds could be collected from public works projects in proportion to their scale.
Central government taxes should also be used, as local governments would be doing a service for the whole nation by conserving a precious genetic reservoir. Every death of a leopard cat is as serious as the destruction of a precious relic in a museum.
Formosan clouded leopards and leopard cats are the only feline species endemic to Taiwan. The extinction of clouded leopards in Taiwan has left Formosan rock macaques without any natural predators, allowing them to breed excessively and become a pest. If leopard cats follow clouded leopards into extinction, it could lead to a collapse of ecological diversity that would affect people as well.
Pan Han-shen is the international secretary of the Trees Party.
Translated by Julian Clegg
A few weeks ago in Kaohsiung, tech mogul turned political pundit Robert Tsao (曹興誠) joined Western Washington University professor Chen Shih-fen (陳時奮) for a public forum in support of Taiwan’s recall campaign. Kaohsiung, already the most Taiwanese independence-minded city in Taiwan, was not in need of a recall. So Chen took a different approach: He made the case that unification with China would be too expensive to work. The argument was unusual. Most of the time, we hear that Taiwan should remain free out of respect for democracy and self-determination, but cost? That is not part of the usual script, and
Behind the gloating, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) must be letting out a big sigh of relief. Its powerful party machine saved the day, but it took that much effort just to survive a challenge mounted by a humble group of active citizens, and in areas where the KMT is historically strong. On the other hand, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) must now realize how toxic a brand it has become to many voters. The campaigners’ amateurism is what made them feel valid and authentic, but when the DPP belatedly inserted itself into the campaign, it did more harm than good. The
For nearly eight decades, Taiwan has provided a home for, and shielded and nurtured, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT). After losing the Chinese Civil War in 1949, the KMT fled to Taiwan, bringing with it hundreds of thousands of soldiers, along with people who would go on to become public servants and educators. The party settled and prospered in Taiwan, and it developed and governed the nation. Taiwan gave the party a second chance. It was Taiwanese who rebuilt order from the ruins of war, through their own sweat and tears. It was Taiwanese who joined forces with democratic activists
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) held a news conference to celebrate his party’s success in surviving Saturday’s mass recall vote, shortly after the final results were confirmed. While the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) would have much preferred a different result, it was not a defeat for the DPP in the same sense that it was a victory for the KMT: Only KMT legislators were facing recalls. That alone should have given Chu cause to reflect, acknowledge any fault, or perhaps even consider apologizing to his party and the nation. However, based on his speech, Chu showed
RSS