Essayist Chang Hsiao-feng (張曉風) and a group of academics, artists and environmental protection activists yesterday urged President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) to designate the No. 202 Munitions Works as Taipei’s “Central Park.”
Chen Fang-ming (陳芳明), director of National Chengchi University’s Graduate Institute of Taiwanese Literature, told a press conference yesterday that the best way to commemorate the 100th birthday of the Republic of China next year would be to turn the former military factory into a park.
“It is a human right to be able to enjoy fresh air in a city — turning the 202 Munitions Works into a park open to the general public would serve the interest of the people,” Chen said.
Academia Sinica’s plan to build a biotechnology park at the site of the No. 202 Munitions Works recently roused a heated development-versus-conservation debate after Chang urged Ma to reconsider the plan and to reserve the 185 hectare site as “Taipei’s last plot of green land.”
Chang, a retired professor, yesterday said it was a must for residents to preserve “every inch of land” at the former military site.
She expressed doubt as to whether Academia Sinica President Wong Chi-huey (翁啟惠) would be able to strike a balance between establishing a biotechnology park at the site and protecting the area as the nation’s top research institution last week felled several decades-old trees to make way for an interdisciplinary research building.
She urged Wong to give up the idea of developing the land into a biotech park.
“To me, something [here] is timeless — the one who acquired the land might have been praised as a hero, but the one who dares to give it up is the true hero,” she said.
Armament Bureau Director Liu Fu-long (劉復龍) said the planned biotech park would occupy just 9.6 hectares of the site, which is located in Taipei City’s Nangang District (南港). On Thursday last week, Wu said the land would remain untouched as the Environmental Protection Administration is now tasked with conducting an environmental impact assessment of the development plan. Still, the activists continued to urge Ma to keep promises he made during his terms as Taipei mayor to turn the site into a park.
“The [government] does not necessarily have to build the planned national biotech park in Taipei,” writer Chen Jo-hsi (陳若曦) said.
“This is a good opportunity for Academia Sinica to expand the nation’s knowledge industry to central and southern Taiwan,” Chen said, adding that the research institute “had better not compete for the land with the public.”
Also present at the press conference, Liang Chi-ming (梁啟銘), senior special assistant to Wong, said Academia Sinica supported referring all development projects to environmental impact assessments.
“We hope to reach a win-win situation between economic development and environmental protection,” Liang said.
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