On World Wetland Day yesterday, environmentalists urged the Changhua County Government to protect its coastal wetlands, saying it should stop opposing the central government’s plans to designate the zone as a national conservation area.
According to Changhua County Environmental Protection Union members at a protest near the county government office in Changhua City, the wetlands at the mouth of the Jhuoshuei River (濁水溪) are the largest collection of mudflats in Taiwan, with a total area of 13,269 hectares.
The area contains more protected species of birds than anywhere else in the nation and provides habitats for other species of environmental or economic value, such as the Taiwanese fiddler crab, the Indo-Pacific humpback dolphin and Austinogebia edulis, a mud shrimp traditionally served as a local delicacy, the union said.
Photo courtesy of the Changhua Environmental Protection Union
In spite of being nominated by the Biodiversity Working Group of the Executive Yuan as a “national wetland of importance” in 2006 and 2009, the wetlands did not receive the designation due to opposition from the county government, which was committed to reclaiming parts of it for oil refineries, the union said.
Known as the Kuokuang Petrochemical Park, the now-defunct project resulted in the loss of 4,000 hectares of the wetland to land-fill operations, but the county government had since put the construction on indefinite hold and no refineries were built, the union said.
As the county government had apparently abandoned plans to develop the coast for industry after the demise of the Kuokuang plan, it should formally reverse its policy and ask the Executive Yuan to grant the wetlands protected status, it said, adding that 83 smaller wetlands have already been incorporated under the national wetlands protection scheme.
Local residents’ opposition to incorporating the area as national wetlands is unwarranted, the union said.
According to the Wetland Conservation Act (濕地保育法), granting national wetland status to an area does not affect its use by local agriculture, fishing, salt production or construction sectors, and will not interfere with land-use by private landowners, the union added.
Taiwan’s endemic subspecies of Indo-Pacific humpback dolphins will certainly become extinct without national efforts to conserve Changhua’s wetlands, environmentalist Wu Hui-chun (吳慧君) said, adding that the population of about 70 dolphins in the area are dependent on Changhua’s coastal wetlands.
Changhua Department of Planning Director Hsieh Chang-ta (謝昌達) said the county is in favor of conserving the wetlands.
Ongoing construction projects on the coast are aimed at community revitalization and are not for industrial construction or urban expansion, Hsieh said.
Many fishermen are opposed to the area being given the status, because they mistakenly believe that authorities would invoke the act to deny them rights to catch or farm fish, Changhua Department of City and Tourism Director Tien Fei-peng (田飛鵬) said.
While local fishermen and fish farmers are required to register fishing operations at sea near a national wetland, the law was written specifically to protect existing local businesses, Tien said.
Two people were killed and another nine injured yesterday after being stung by hornets while hiking in New Taipei City’s Rueifang District (瑞芳), with officials warning against wearing perfume or straying from trails during the autumn to avoid the potentially deadly creatures. Seven of the hikers only sustained minor injuries after being stung along the Bafenliao Hiking Trail (八分寮) and made their way down the mountain with a guide, the New Taipei City Fire Department said. Four of them — all male — sustained more serious injuries and were assisted when leaving the mountain, the department said. Two of them, a man surnamed
China’s Office of the Commissioner of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Hong Kong has asked foreign consulates in Hong Kong to submit details of their local staff, which is more proof that the “one country, two systems” model no longer exists, a Taiwanese academic said. The office sent letters dated Monday last week to consulates in the territory, giving them one month to submit the information it requires. The move followed Beijing’s attempt to obtain floor plans for all properties used by foreign missions in Hong Kong last year, which raised concerns among diplomats that the information could be used for
Recent movements by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) have been “highly unusual,” but the military maintains a grasp of the situation, Minister of National Defense Chiu Kuo-cheng (邱國正) said on Friday, after the military for the first time said it was monitoring troop movements in China’s Dacheng Bay (大埕灣). The minister gave the remarks to reporters before appearing at the legislature on the first day of its new session. The Ministry of National Defense on Thursday evening released an air force surveillance photograph of a PLA Shaanxi Y-8 anti-submarine aircraft, and said it was monitoring the PLA Rocket Force and ground
‘ABNORMITY’: News of the military exercises on the coast of the Chinese province facing Taiwan were made public by the Ministry of National Defense on Thursday Taiwan’s military yesterday said it has detected the Chinese military initiating a round of exercises at a bay area in coastal Fujian Province, which faces Taiwan, since early yesterday morning and it has been closely monitoring the drills. The exercises being conducted at Fujian’s Dacheng Bay featured an undisclosed number of People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) warplanes, warships and ground troops, the Ministry of National Defense said in a press statement. The ministry did not disclose what kind of military exercises are being conducted there and for how long they would be happening, but it did say that it has been closely watching