The Penghu County Government plans to protect cacti that grow on the county’s 90 islands because they are threatened by an increasing number of prickly pear pickers. Although cacti are endemic to Penghu County, their economic value has only recently been noticed because of the development of tourism.
Prickly pears — fruits from a variety of cactus — are now used to make pastries, juice, vinegar, ice cream or as a cooking ingredient.
“As prickly pears gain popularity, more people in Penghu now work as part-time cactus fruit pickers for extra income,” Penghu County Government’s Agriculture and Fisheries Bureau Director Cheng Ming-yuan (鄭明源) said via a telephone interview. “This is good news and bad news at the same time.”
The good news is that the growing popularity of prickly pears has created a new industry in Penghu, with the county government planning to create cactus farms and encourage cactus horticulture. However, the bad news is that inappropriate practices in picking the fruit are threatening wild cacti in the county, Cheng said.
“For example, in order to get to the center of a cactus bush to get to the fruit, some people place large wooden boards horizontally over the bush and simply walk into it using the board,” he said. “Cacti on the perimeter of the bush wind up dead when they do that.”
Because of inappropriate fruit picking practices, Cheng said he has observed a decline in cactus vegetation in some areas of the county and is worried that wild cacti may soon disappear if the county government doesn’t intervene.
“We do realize that we can’t have people patrolling cacti since we don’t have that many people and that much money. But we’ll try to ask each village to take care of the cactus fields near them. We’ll also leave space in between cacti so that the fruit can be more accessible to pickers,” he said.
SAFETY IN REGULATION: The proposal states that Chiayi should assess whether it is viable to establish such a district and draft rules to protect clients and sex workers The Chiayi City Council passed a motion yesterday to assess the viability of establishing a regulated red-light district. The council yesterday held its last session of the year, at which its fiscal 2024 budget was approved, along with 61 other proposals. The proposal to assess the viability of establishing a red-light district was put forward by independent Chiayi City Councilor Molly Yen (顏色不分藍綠支持性專區顏色田慎節). The proposal cited 2011 amendments to the Social Order Maintenance Act (社會秩序維護法), which stipulate that city and county governments can pass autonomous regulations on the sex trade to manage the industry and guarantee industry workers’ rights. A ban on the
STABILITY AND CHANGE: Flagging in recent polls, Ko this week pledged to maintain President Tsai’s foreign policy, with an emphasis on improving China relations Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) Chairman and presidential candidate Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) yesterday reiterated that he is “deep-green at heart” in response to accusations that he is pivoting his campaign to align closer with the ideology of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in the face of flagging polls. Ko made the remark at an agricultural policy conference in Taipei, repeating his comments from an interview with CTS News a day earlier. Ko told the CTS host that he would continue to pursue President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) national defense and foreign policy in general, but with an emphasis on establishing a rapport with
CHINA illness surge: Of 88 travelers from China, Hong Kong and Macau with respiratory symptoms who were encouraged to get tested upon arrival, 70.6% had the flu Two hundred and sixty people with COVID-19 were hospitalized and 31 deaths related to the virus were reported last week — the highest numbers in four weeks, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday, adding that cases are expected to peak next month. CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Director Guo Hung-wei (郭宏偉) said that of the 260 people hospitalized last week with moderate to severe COVID-19, 98 percent had not received the Omicron XBB.1.5-adapted COVID-19 vaccine. Among the people hospitalized this year, 78 percent were aged 65 or older, while most of the those who were hospitalized or died have or had
Taiwanese who have recently traveled to China for tourism, to visit friends or relatives or for business reasons have been interrogated, detained and faced other forms of unreasonable treatment from Chinese officials, a source said on Sunday. Among them was a Taiwanese who was detained for eight hours at an airport in China due to their research, which is related to religion, while others have had their travel documents for China canceled for a number of reasons, the source said. In July, China expanded the scope of its counterespionage law, and recently announced a draft amendment to the law on the protection
RSS