A coalition of environmentalist groups yesterday called the Changhua County Government to designate the county’s coastline as a wetland of national importance to protect coastal resources following the passage of the Wetlands Conservation Act (濕地保育法) last year.
On World Wetlands Day yesterday, conservationists gathered in front of the county government building, urging the local administration to recognize the coast — stretching from the estuary of the Jhuoshuei River (濁水溪) to Changhua Coastal Industrial Park — and help it attain certification as wetlands of international importance.
Changhua County Environmental Protection Union deputy director Hung Hsin-yu (洪新有) said a task force from the Ministry of the Interior rated the county’s Dacheng Wetlands (大城濕地), Hanbao Wetlands (漢寶濕地) and the wetlands at the Jhuoshuei River estuary collectively as wetlands of international importance, which were also ranked the first among 76 wetlands that were evaluated, more important than Tainan’s Cigu Wetlands (七股溼地) and Sihcao Wetlands (四草溼地), the nation’s only wetlands of international importance where endangered black-faced spoonbills live.
“President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) expressed disapproval of Kuokuang Petrochemical Technology Co’s refinery project on the Changhua coast in 2011, preventing the wetlands from development and eventual destruction, but five years have passed without the wetlands being recognized and coming under legal protection,” Taiwan Environmental Information Association Environmental Trust Center director Sun Hsiu-ju (孫秀如) said.
Taiwan West Coast Conservation Association director Hsu Li-yi (許立儀) said the Changhua coast is known as the major habitat of Far Eastern curlews, a protected bird species, with 80 percent of the bird’s population in Taiwan concentrated in Changhua.
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