The Council of Agriculture yesterday unveiled a red list of the nation’s vascular plants and said that orchids make up the majority of the nation’s endangered plant species.
The list was compiled by the council and the Taiwan Society of Plant Systematics with contributions from more than 50 botanists, who spent four years investigating the conditions of the nation’s wild flora, Endemic Species Research Institute Director Yang Jia-dong (楊嘉棟) said.
It is the nation’s most comprehensive investigation into vascular plants, Yang said, adding that the evaluation refers to the red list criteria of the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
Of the 4,442 investigated species, 27 have become extinct, among which five have become extinct worldwide and 22 only in Taiwan, said Chang Ho-ming (張和明), an assistant researcher at the institute.
The five extinct species are Rhododendron kanehirai, Nymphoides lungtanensis, Musa yamiensis, Limnophila heterophylla and Limnophila taoyuanensis, according to the list.
The Rhododendron kanehirai used to grow along New Taipei City’s Beishih River (北勢溪), but the habitat was ruined by the construction of the Feicuei Reservoir (翡翠水庫), Chang said.
Fortunately, some of their seedlings were preserved and can be restored in laboratories, he added.
There are a total of 989 species of plant that are critically endangered, nationally endangered or nationally vulnerable, which is about one-fifth of the total number of plants in Taiwan, he said.
While the exportation of orchids earns the nation about NT$6 billion (US$206 million) annually, some orchids — such as Phalaenopsis — can only be found in greenhouses, said Li Chiuan-yu (李權裕), another assistant researcher.
Three decades ago, nearly 200 orchid species could be found on Orchid Island (Lanyu, 蘭嶼) and Green Island (綠島), but unrestrained human activity have largely destroyed their habitats, Li said.
The institute has begun to restore certain orchids, such as Spathoglottis plicata, on Orchid Island, Li said, adding that is also invited local elementary schools to maintain the plants.
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday inaugurated the Danjiang Bridge across the Tamsui River in New Taipei City, saying that the structure would be an architectural icon and traffic artery for Taiwan. Feted as a major engineering achievement, the Danjiang Bridge is 920m long, 211m tall at the top of its pylon, and is the longest single-pylon asymmetric cable-stayed bridge in the world, the government’s Web site for the structure said. It was designed by late Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid. The structure, with a maximum deck of 70m, accommodates road and light rail traffic, and affords a 200m navigation channel for boats,
PRECISION STRIKES: The most significant reason to deploy HIMARS to outlying islands is to establish a ‘dead zone’ that the PLA would not dare enter, a source said A High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) would be deployed to Penghu County and Dongyin Island (東引) in Lienchiang County (Matsu) to force the Chinese military to retreat at least 100km from the coastline, a military source said yesterday. Taiwan has been procuring HIMARS and Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) from the US in batches. Once all batches have been delivered, Taiwan would possess 111 HIMARS units and 504 ATACMS, which have a range of 300km. Considering that “offense is the best defense,” the military plans to forward-deploy the systems to outlying islands such as Penghu and Dongyin so that
WHAT WAS ALL THAT FOR? Jaw Shaw-kong said that Cheng Li-wen had pushed for more drastic cuts and attacked him, just for the outcome to be nearly identical to his bill The legislature yesterday passed a supplementary budget bill to fund the purchase of separate packages of US military equipment, with the combined amount of spending capped at NT$780 billion (US$24.8 billion). The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) used their legislative majority to pass the bill, which runs until 2033 and has two main funding provisions. One was for NT$300 billion of arms sales already approved by the US for Taiwan on Dec. 17 last year, the other was for NT$480 billion for another arms package expected to be announced by Washington. The bill, which fell short of the NT$1.25
‘CLEAR MESSAGE’: The bill would set up an interagency ‘tiger team’ to review sanctions tools and other economic options to help deter any Chinese aggression toward Taiwan US Representative Young Kim has introduced a bill to deter Chinese aggression against Taiwan, calling for an interagency “tiger team” to preplan coordinated sanctions and economic measures in response to possible Chinese military or political action against Taiwan. “[Chinese President] Xi Jinping [習近平] has directed the People’s Liberation Army to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. China has a plan. America should have one too,” Kim said in a news release on Thursday last week. She introduced the “Deter PRC [People’s Republic of China] aggression against Taiwan act” to “ensure the US has a coordinated sanctions strategy ready should
RSS