Some believe that cross-strait issues can be stripped of their political significance. At least, that was the hope voiced at a recent conference in Hong Kong by non-governmental organization (NGO) environmental activists from Taiwan, China and Hong Kong.
"Make friends first, and fight hand-in-hand later," Chang Hung-lin (張宏林), a representative of Taiwan-based Society of Wilderness (荒野保護協會), told the Taipei Times, summarizing the spirit of the meeting.
Dozens of NGO activists and journalists reporting on environmental issues from the three Chinese-speaking territories spent two days at the Forum on Green NGOs and Environmental Journalism. The gathering was sponsored by the US-based Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars and the Center of Asian Studies and the Journalism Media Studies Center both at the University of Hong Kong.
PHOTO: CHEN CHENG-CHANG, TAIPEI TIMES
The scope of debate for the forum was deliberately wide to allow the disparate groups to become better acquainted.
"We don't attempt to draw conclusions from the forum. We seek to improve NGO activists' understanding of their counterparts' situation," Chang said.
The participants from the 30 NGOs represented discovered that, because of their differing social and political situations, they are not all fighting the same battles, though they agreed their overarching goal is the struggle for an environmentally sustainable future.
Tough stand in Taiwan
Taiwanese representatives at the conference raised eyebrows with accounts of their tough approach to environmental activism.
Taiwan's environmental movement arose in the 1970s, when rapid economic development began to show its detrimental impact on the environment. The movement also emerged in reaction to Taiwan's reluctance to follow advanced countries which had begun to see value in developing environmentally sound production methods.
Lin Sheng-chung (林聖崇), head of the Taiwan-based Ecology Conservation Alliance (生態保育聯盟), composed of 44 grassroots environmental groups, explained the often confrontational style of activism found in Taiwan both before and after the lifting of martial law in 1987. He told how in 1986, for example, the US firm DuPont abandoned a project to build a factory in Lukang (鹿港) in central Taiwan due to local demonstrations. Then in 1988, the Lee Chang Yung Chemistry Co. (李長榮化工), decried by environmentalists as a notorious polluter, was shut down for a year after a 500-day sit-in to protest the company's discharge of untreated chemical waste water.
In the early 1990s, as civil rights were strengthened with the repeal of various martial law-era regulations, environmentalists were emboldened to join forces with dissident political groups, in particular the DPP. But, when the DPP took a third of the legislative seats in the first open elections of 1992, potentially explosive environmental issues were defused as activists began to work within the legal system.
The Environmental Impact Assessment Act (環境影響評估法) of 1994, demanding a review of an industrial project's anticipated level of damage to the local ecology, ushered in a new model for activism in Taiwan.
"We now challenge laws, budgets allocated by governmental agencies and even personnel arrangement," Lin said.
In addition to conservation groups like the Society of Wilderness that work within the political system, there are also vocal grassroots environmental groups that carry out their missions at the local level.
At the forum, Joyce Fu (伏嘉捷), secretary-general of the Green Formosa Front (台灣綠色陣線), described her group's experience of targeting industrial firms they viewed as major polluters. Fu argued that firms in Taiwan had been engaged in flagrant destruction of the environment by allying with local political factions, buying off politicians and ignoring petitions by environmentalists.
Chung Ming-kuang (鍾明光) of the Meinung People's Association (美濃愛鄉協進會) told the group's success story of resistance against a national project to build a dam in a remote township composed mainly of Hakka residents. Now, local Meinung people are fighting a waste incinerator built in a river's buffer zone.
For audience members from Hong Kong and China, the stories of Taiwan's form of activism were often humorous, but were also a reminder of the restricted environment in which they operate.
Obedient environmentalists in Hong Kong
In contrast to the feisty grassroots nature of environmentalism in Taiwan, Sannie Chan (
The 1km2 U-shaped islet was once a prosperous fishing port before the 1960s, but was later transformed into an industrial site. The industries have since left and now only 8,000 residents remain.
Chan has championed the cause of turning the islet into an eco-tourism site, but has received scant backing for the project.
However, locality-specific NGOs, such as the Green Peng Chau Association, have never been the mainstream of the environmental movement in Hong Kong.
Lee Yuk-shiu, a geography professor at the University of Hong Kong, said NGOs in Hong Kong mostly focus on environmental education campaigns, legal challenges and policy advocacy.
Lee said environmentalism was hindered in Hong Kong by politically fatalistic attitudes, a strong pragmatic streak and the fact that many residents are transient. He also said many people held a consumer mindset even toward membership in environmental groups.
"Many members pay membership fees and expect services. Without a satisfactory outcome, they won't pay," Lee said.
With a small membership base, Lee said, NGOs in Hong Kong need outside funding, much of which comes from the Hong Kong Government.
Ng Cho-nam (吳祖南), also of the University of Hong Kong and a member of the city's Conservancy Association, said that environmentalists in Hong Kong believed that working with the government to be a wise strategy.
"We criticize wrong policies because we believe that the government is not one-single-minded consolidation. Some departments still care about the environment," Ng said.
Breaking through in China
Since Liang Congjie (梁從誡) established China's first environmental organization, Friends of Nature (自然之友), in Beijing in 1994, environmental protection has become something of a trend.
"Talking about environmental protection is definitely a trend in China. It implies that you are a cultured person," Hu Kanping (胡勘平), a senior reporter for China Green Times (中國綠色時報), a government newspaper which covers forestry issues, told the Taipei Times.
Liang said, however, that environmental consciousness did not extend to rural areas, where such concerns fell by the wayside.
"The concept of environmental protection should be internalized. Ethically, it is a kind of altruism," Liang said.
Jin Jiaman (金嘉滿), a member of the Beijing-based Green Earth Volunteers (綠家園志願者), a unregistered green group composed of professionals from diverse fields, argued that public participation in environmental issues was growing, as evidenced by a struggle in Qingdao (青島), Shandong Province on the part of hundreds of residents who filed a lawsuit last year, accusing the local the government of building a residential complex along a beach and blocking their view. In another example, in Fuzhou (福州), Fujian Province, 600 residents formed a team called the Xingang Environmental Inspection Team (新港環保監督隊) to monitor environmental protection and raise environmental consciousness.
Working together
Wong Siu-lun (黃紹倫), director of the Center of Asian Studies at the University of Hong Kong said at the forum that people from the three regions should put aside political differences and put their energy into environmental issues.
"Unofficial channels like this [for discussing non-political issues] should become a new model for people to approach cross-strait affairs," Wong said.
Chang of the Society of Wilderness said the meeting had a practical purpose as well. "Knowing our counterparts more helps us improve ourselves."
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