The Green Party Taiwan yesterday said the Taipei City Government had illegally felled trees to clear land for the construction of a gymnasium at the Songshan Cigarettes Factory site.
"There are 489 trees over 60 years of age that should be protected under Taipei City Government regulations, but the city government only listed 136 of them for protection," said Pan Han-shen (潘翰聲), Sectary-General of Green Party Taiwan, whose main platform is environmental protection.
Accompanied by members of his party, Pan yesterday filed a lawsuit against the city government at a Taipei District Prosecutors' Office for failing to list all the old trees for protection.
What the city government did violated the law, Pan said.
The Songshan Cigarettes Factory site is full of old trees that should be well protected, he said, adding that his party had found that the city government wanted to cut the trees down to facilitate the construction of a stadium.
In all, 353 trees have not been listed for protection and some of them have already been cut, Pan said.
He said that trees listed for protection cannot be cut and must instead be transplanted elsewhere.
Among the 136 trees on the protection list, 78 trees are coconut palms, which can easily continue living after being transplanted, Pan said.
He said that the city government had purposely listed most coconut palms for protection, but skipped some other precious trees whose transplantation could be more problematic.
He said that Taipei councilors would raise the issue at the city council next week.
The Taipei City Department of Education yesterday dismissed the accusations, claiming that all the trees had been transplanted in accordance with the recommendations of professionals.
"We've conducted thorough and professional evaluations before transplanting the trees. There's nothing illegal in the manner in which we proceeded and we will continue to transplant the trees as per the plan," said Chang Cheng-chun (張政忠), an education department administrator at the Taipei Dome Complex planning office.
In response to the Green Party's allegation that the department had failed to protect trees aged between 60 and 70 years, Chang said that all the trees in the park were under 50 years of age and that the Taipei City Tree Protection Bylaw (
"Everything was done by the book," Chang said. "We will continue with the plan and if the case ends up in court, we will provide all the evidence we need." Additional reporting by Mo Yan-chih
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