Aborigines in Katatipul village yesterday received good news regarding their fight against a proposed solar energy farm being built on their land, with the High Administrative Court’s Taipei branch ordering that construction be temporarily halted.
In January 2018, the Taitung County Government launched the bidding process for the 226 hectare “special area for solar power facilities and education demonstration,” which would become the nation’s largest solar farm if completed, but the Puyuma people say that they were not involved in the planning process as required by Article 21 of the Indigenous Peoples Basic Act (原住民族基本法). As a protester said last year, the problem was not “about supporting or opposing green energy development, but about consulting Aborigines before exploiting their land.”
President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) made development of renewable energy sources a key policy initiative after she took power in 2016, with the goal of having 20 percent of the nation’s power supplied by them by 2025. It is a worthy and important goal, and there should be little reasonable opposition to renewable energy itself, but the issue of where the facilities should be built continues to pose a problem.
Last month, about 100 residents from Tainan’s Lujhugou Village (蘆竹溝) traveled to the city to protest the construction of a solar farm near their land, demanding that it be halted immediately. Aside from concerns about the facility’s potential impact on the environment and the community’s oyster farms, the residents cited the same problem that those from Katatipul had: The developers failed to negotiate and communicate with them beforehand.
This is not the first fight that Katatipul residents have had with the government. From 2010 to 2018 they battled against the forced relocation of an ancestral graveyard, and finally reached an agreement after 11 administrative court proceedings.
Their resistance against the solar farm began shortly afterward. The residents said that there was minimal communication with them before the project was approved and bidding for the contract was launched. When there were meetings, they were mostly one-way policy promotion events, and they were not consulted on their needs or opinions, they said.
Although the government held a referendum in June last year in which the project was approved by a small margin, yesterday’s verdict questioned the validity of the process and cited numerous possible procedural errors that would have been unfair and caused a lot of conflict within the village.
Encouragingly, the administrative court said that while the developers might suffer some monetary setbacks because of the decision, no amount of compensation could make up for the loss of the autonomy, dignity and cultural pride that the residents deserve, and that the rights of the villagers should be put first. If the project were allowed to go on, it would only further harm the community’s right to self-determination, the court added.
This is an unfortunate situation. If handled properly and with the full participation of the community and consideration of its needs, the project could have been a winning situation for the village, developers, government and the environment. It is too late for that now, but the government and developers need to listen to the court and sincerely work with Katatipul residents to resolve the issues and find a solution.
This should be a warning regarding future projects — people know their rights and will not concede defeat without a fight. Callously pushing projects forward will only hamper the nation’s progress toward a green future.
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