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.
China has reserved offshore airspace in the Yellow Sea and East China Sea from March 27 to May 6, issuing alerts usually used to warn of military exercises, although no such exercises have been announced, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported yesterday. Reserving such a large area for 40 days without explanation is an “unusual step,” as military exercises normally only last a few days, the paper said. These alerts, known as Notice to Air Missions (Notams), “are intended to inform pilots and aviation authorities of temporary airspace hazards or restrictions,” the article said. The airspace reserved in the alert is
NAMING SPAT: The foreign ministry called on Denmark to propose an acceptable solution to the erroneous nationality used for Taiwanese on residence permits Taiwan has revoked some privileges for Danish diplomatic staff over a Danish permit that lists “Taiwan” as “China,” Eric Huang (黃鈞耀), head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Department of European Affairs, told a news conference in Taipei yesterday. Reporters asked Huang whether the Danish government had responded to the ministry’s request that it correct the nationality on Danish residence permits of Taiwanese, which has been listed as “China” since 2024. Taiwan’s representative office in Denmark continues to communicate with the Danish government, and the ministry has revoked some privileges previously granted to Danish representatives in Taiwan and would continue to review
More than 6,000 Taiwanese students have participated in exchange programs in China over the past two years, despite the Mainland Affairs Council’s (MAC) “orange light” travel advisory, government records showed. The MAC’s publicly available registry showed that Taiwanese college and university students who went on exchange programs across the Strait numbered 3,592 and 2,966 people respectively. The National Immigration Agency data revealed that 2,296 and 2,551 Chinese students visited Taiwan for study in the same two years. A review of the Web sites of publicly-run universities and colleges showed that Taiwanese higher education institutions continued to recruit students for Chinese educational programs without
The first bluefin tuna of the season, brought to shore in Pingtung County and weighing 190kg, was yesterday auctioned for NT$10,600 (US$333.5) per kilogram, setting a record high for the local market. The auction was held at the fish market in Donggang Fishing Harbor, where the Siaoliouciou Island-registered fishing vessel Fu Yu Ching No. 2 delivered the “Pingtung First Tuna” it had caught for bidding. Bidding was intense, and the tuna was ultimately jointly purchased by a local restaurant and a local company for NT$10,600 per kilogram — NT$300 ,more than last year — for a total of NT$2.014 million. The 67-year-old skipper
RSS