The Caota Sand Dunes (草漯沙丘) in Taoyuan’s Guanyin District (觀音) is a site that “everyone must visit once in their lifetime,” Taoyuan Mayor Cheng Wen-tsan (鄭文燦) has said.
Cheng’s administration this year spent NT$37 million (US$1.25 million) on a footpath along the coast for visitors to the dunes, which have been listed as the city’s first geological park, and the third in the nation.
The Caota dunes are up to 15m tall and extend 8.1km along the coast in a northeast-southwest direction.
Photo: Cheng Shu-ting, Taipei Times
Environmental conservation group the Taiwan Environmental Information Association has listed the dunes as one of nine coastal sites nationwide that warrant preservation.
After a blogger read about the association’s listing of the dunes and wrote about it earlier this year, visitors flocked to the site to take photographs.
The first section of the footpath opened on June 16 near Chaoyin N Road, the city said, adding that it hopes to complete work on the second section — near Jhongsiao Road — by the end of the year.
Speaking at the opening ceremony for the footpath on Tuesday, Cheng said Taoyuan had applied for recognition of the site as a geological park in 2018, and that the application was approved this month.
The only other geological parks in the nation are in Matsu and Yunlin County’s Gukeng Township (古坑).
Recognition as a geological park would help conserve a 284 hectare section of Taoyuan’s coastline between Guanyin and Dayuan (大園) districts, Cheng said.
The area would be split into three sections from a conservation management perspective, comprising a core area with fully formed dunes, a restoration section and a regular section, he said.
The core section would be accessible only for research and environmental education, to preserve its form, while the regular section would be open to the public and be accessible for recreation purposes, he said.
Seven of the 17 NT$10 million (US$311,604) winning receipts from the November-December uniform invoice lottery remain unclaimed as of today, the Ministry of Finance said, urging winners to redeem their prizes by May 5. The reminder comes ahead of the release of the winning numbers for the January-February lottery tomorrow. Among the unclaimed receipts was one for a NT$173 phone bill in Keelung, while others were for a NT$5,913 purchase at Costco in Taipei's Neihu District (內湖), a NT$49 purchase at a FamilyMart in New Taipei City's Tamsui District (淡水), and a NT$500 purchase at a tea shop in New Taipei City's
Taiwanese officials were shown the first of 66 F-16V fighter jets purchased by Taiwan from the United States, the Ministry of National Defense said yesterday, adding the aircraft has completed an initial flight test and is expected to be delivered later this year. A delegation led by Deputy Minister of National Defense Hsu Szu-chien (徐斯儉) visited Lockheed Martin’s F-16 C/D Block 70 (also known as F-16V) assembly line in South Carolina on March 16 to view the aircraft. The jet will undergo a final acceptance flight in the US before being delivered to Taiwan, the
Deliveries of delayed F-16V jets are expected to begin in September, Minister of National Defense Wellington Koo (顧立雄) said today, after senior defense officials visited the US last week. The US in 2019 approved a US$8 billion sale of Lockheed Martin F-16 jets to Taiwan, a deal that would take the nation’s F-16 fleet to more than 200 jets, but the project has been hit by issues including software problems. Koo appeared today before a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, which is discussing different versions of the special defense budget this week. The committee is questioning officials today,
TALENT SCOUTING: The university is investing substantial funds in its future to bring in the kind of researchers that would keep the college internationally competitive National Taiwan University (NTU) plans to invest NT$2 billion (US$62.6 million) to launch two programs aimed at attracting and retaining top research talent, university president Chen Wen-chang (陳文章) said yesterday. The funding would support the “Palm Grove Scholars Project,” which targets academics aged 40 to 55. Up to 20 scholars would be selected, each receiving as much as NT$10 million annually, Chen said. The initiative is designed to attract leading researchers to Taiwan and strengthen NTU’s global competitiveness by fostering a more research-friendly environment and expanding international collaboration, he said. NTU is also introducing a “Hong Hu” chair grant, which would provide Palm
RSS