A conservation site for leopard cats would be found before the end of the year, the National Property Administration (NPA) said, adding that it is working with the Council of Agriculture’s Forestry Bureau to select a parcel of state-owned land for the project.
The administration prioritizes the use of state-owned land by conservation, public interest and, then, utilization, Director-General Tseng Kuo-chi (曾國基) said.
Conservation regulations issued on Jan. 30 cleared the way for marginal state-owned land to be “adopted” by groups for non-public environmental protection, he added.
Photo courtesy of the Endemic Species Research Institute
Environmental groups have applied to use Chiayi County’s Budai Wetland (布袋濕地) and Tainan’s Cigu Wetland (七股溼地), he said, adding that the groups’ applications would be reviewed by the end of the month.
Groups that pass the review could sign an “adoption” contract and get the land that they need, Tseng said.
The administration continues to work on the conservation of leopard cats, which are mainly found at lower altitudes in mountainous areas in Miaoli and Nantou counties and Taichung, he said.
Residential areas and leopard cat habitats overlap, so the animals are often run over by vehicles or killed when farmers find them preying on livestock, he said.
The administration has asked the Forestry Bureau to identify “hotspots” where the species has appeared so that their breeding areas can be protected, he said.
Pinpointing where sightings happened on state-owned land would help to determine what parcel to use for a conservation site, Tseng added.
If the land is not being used, the Environmental Protection Administration would recommend environmental groups to “adopt” it, he said.
If the land is already being leased, the bureau would implement a reward system to encourage the tenants to engage in environmentally friendly farming practices so that the leopard cats can breed and live safely, Tseng said.
“The earlier conservation is started, the earlier results can be achieved and the earlier the harm done to leopard cats can be reduced,” he added.
A Vietnamese migrant worker on Thursday won the NT$12 million (US$383,590) jackpot on a scratch-off lottery ticket she bought from a lottery shop in Changhua County’s Puyan Township (埔鹽), Taiwan Lottery Co said yesterday. The lottery winner, who is in her 30s and married, said she would continue to work in Taiwan and send her winnings to her family in Vietnam to improve their life. More Taiwanese and migrant workers have flocked to the lottery shop on Sec 2 of Jhangshuei Road (彰水路) to share in the luck. The shop owner, surnamed Chen (陳), said that his shop has been open for just
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Global bodies should stop excluding Taiwan for political reasons, President William Lai (賴清德) told Pope Francis in a letter, adding that he agrees war has no winners. The Vatican is one of only 12 countries to retain formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan, and Taipei has watched with concern efforts by Beijing and the Holy See to improve ties. In October, the Vatican and China extended an accord on the appointment of Catholic bishops in China for four years, pointing to a new level of trust between the two parties. Lai, writing to the pope in response to the pontiff’s message on Jan. 1’s
MUST REMAIN FREE: A Chinese takeover of Taiwan would lead to a global conflict, and if the nation blows up, the world’s factories would fall in a week, a minister said Taiwan is like Prague in 1938 facing Adolf Hitler; only if Taiwan remains free and democratic would the world be safe, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Francois Wu (吳志中) said in an interview with Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera. The ministry on Saturday said Corriere della Sera is one of Italy’s oldest and most read newspapers, frequently covers European economic and political issues, and that Wu agreed to an interview with the paper’s senior political analyst Massimo Franco in Taipei on Jan. 3. The interview was published on Jan. 26 with the title “Taiwan like Prague in 1938 with Hitler,” the ministry