Hundreds of people, many dressed in hot hiking gear under an intense morning sun, protested at the Presidential Office yesterday, showing their opposition to proposed cable-car projects that they say would be harmful to fragile mountain ecosystems.
The demonstration, organized by the Anti-Cable Car Union (
The protest came in response to a plan recently drafted by the Council for Economic Planning and Development (CEPD) to build cable cars on four mountains higher than 3,000m.
The draft calls for projects -- together projected to cost about NT$3 billion (US$91 million) -- on Jade Mountain (玉山), Snow Mountain (雪山), Hohuan Mountain (合歡山) and Nanhu Mountain (南湖大山).
The projects would make it easier for tourists to visit sensitive areas in three national parks. The number of visitors traveling to those parks each year is projected to rise from 5 million to 8 million.
The draft has been forwarded to the Ministry of Transportation and Communications, which is expected to act on it soon.
Yesterday morning, under a hot sun, hikers, mountain climbers, bird watchers and people who just enjoy the beauty of the mountains came to the demonstration equipped with backpacks, mountaineering boots, hats and caps -- mountain-climber's gear that they wore to demonstrate that they are lovers of the mountains.
Banging together stainless cups -- common drinking vessels for hikers and climbers -- they shouted: "Love the mountains! No Cable Cars!"
"We are speaking out about the wrongheadedness of this plan. We want the government to look before it leaps," Chang Hung-lin (張宏林), secretary-general of the Wilderness Society (荒野保護協會, SOW), told the Taipei Times.
Chang said that representative of the society had communicated with the CEPD on several occasions about development projects that the society's members believe are not necessary.
"European examples might not be appropriate for Taiwan because high mountains here are often covered in fog and get torrential rain," Chang said.
On Ketagalan Boulevard, event organizer Liu Man-yi (
Liu said that the cable-car plan does not reflect up-to-date environmental attitudes, but rather tries to persuade people that economic development must take precedence over environmental protection.
Aware that the demonstration was planned, Chang Ching-sen (
Chang argued that cable cars had been described by the UN Mountain Agenda as one of the most environment-friendly approaches to mountain traffic.
"Japan, a country that sits along the same seismic belt as Taiwan, has more high mountain cable cars than any other Asian country," Chang wrote.
Chang said that building wood pathways might create more environmental damage than building cable cars would.
Chang said that only 0.2 percent of Taiwanese people each year reach the top of Jade Mountain, the highest peak in Taiwan, and that the difficulty of the climb deprives the weak of the opportunity to make pilgrimages there.
Chang said that cable-car projects would not only promote tourism in high mountain areas but would also bring economic development to remote towns.
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