The Council of Indigenous Peoples yesterday said it would start procedures to reinstate the Thao people’s traditional territory in Nantou County’s Yuchih Township (魚池), after the Executive Yuan on Friday granted an administrative appeal filed by the local government and land developers to annul their ownership of the territory.
The annulment was due to a procedural flaw in the process of drawing the territory and is irrelevant to the territory’s scope, the council said in a statement.
The council on June 11 last year announced that more than 8,000 hectares of land in the township would be designated as the Thao people’s traditional territory as part of the President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) administration’s efforts to implement transitional justice for Aboriginal communities.
Photo: Liu Pin-chuan, Taipei Times
The territory covers two-thirds of the township, including an area near Sun Moon Lake where the Nantou County Government has planned a NT$1 billion (US$324.78 million) build-operate-transfer resort project.
Under Article 21 of the Indigenous Peoples Basic Act (原住民族基本法), any land development project on traditional Aboriginal land must obtain the consent of the local Aboriginal community.
Fearing that the local Aboriginal community would block the planned resort and other development projects, the county government, the township office and land developers filed an administrative appeal against the council’s decision to reinstate the territory.
The Executive Yuan in its ruling said that the territory is invalid because the council had failed to invite all government agencies responsible for land management in the area to take part in the drawing process.
The council also ignored the county government’s objections during meetings, instead of going through a negotiation process as required by regulations, it said.
The county government and the township office during a meeting on Feb. 6 last year said that they would respect the council’s decision on the Thao people’s traditional territory, the council said in its statement.
“We regret that they decided to deny the consensus reached in the meeting and file an administrative appeal,” the council said.
The council would correct the procedural flaw pointed out by the Executive Yuan and reinstate the Thao people’s traditional territory, council Minister Icyang Parod said.
The council is committed to helping Aboriginal communities recover their traditional territories and would work on communicating with other agencies to improve harmony between the ethnic Chinese and Aboriginal communities, he added.
The Thao National Assembly accused the county government of flip-flopping and fueling ethnic tension.
The county government had agreed to the traditional territory plan, except for the area it had chosen for the resort, the assembly said in a statement.
“It was the county government that submitted the proposed traditional territory to the council,” it said.
To secure its resort plan, the county government tried to pit ethnic Chinese against the Thao people by saying that the territory would subject the entire township to the control of a small number of Thao people, it said.
“We hope all members of the public will pay attention to this case and help us protect our beautiful natural resources and unique Thao culture from being destroyed by the local government’s profit-seeking development projects,” it said.
Additional reporting by Liu Pin-chuan
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