The Keelung City Government is reviewing “natural landscape” and “natural monument” designation applications filed on behalf of Heping Island Park (和平島公園) and a “seal-shaped rock” off Badouzi (八斗子), the Keelung Department of Economic Affairs said.
The respective applications were filed by the North Coast and Guanyinshan National Scenic Area Administration and the Wild Bird Society of Keelung, seeking to have the areas listed in the two categories defined in the Cultural Heritage Preservation Act (文化資產保存法).
Weathering and coastal erosion have created a unique landscape at the coast of Heping Island and along the Badouzi coast, including pedestal rocks that resemble mushrooms or chessboards, as well as wave-cut platforms, the groups said.
Photo: Lu Heien-hsiu, Taipei Times
Scenic area administration director Chen Mei-hsiu (陳美秀) said the characteristic rocks in the park are part of the Talio formation that also dominates New Taipei City’s Yehliu Geopark (野柳地質公園).
The New Taipei City Government has designated Yehliu a natural landscape, as part of its efforts to promote international tourism, she said.
The rock on Badouzi’s Daping Shore (大坪海岸), which resembles a resting seal and only appears at low tide, has become a popular local tourist attraction.
Photo: Lu Heien-hsiu, Taipei Times
However, the Wild Bird Society said that the increase in visitor numbers has led to more garbage being disposed along the shore.
Some visitors sit on the rock while having their pictures taken, potentially damaging it, the group said.
Local residents have said they hope the rock becomes a designated natural monument and that the city government promotes awareness about the site.
Department of Economic Affairs Director Huang Chien-feng (黃健峰) said that the city government recently held a meeting in which the applicants explained their submissions and is planning to form an application review committee.
Keelung is seeking to gather opinions from all sectors involved in potential designations, Huang said.
Keelung City councilors Chang Hao-han (張顥瀚) and Sean Chang (張淵翔) said the designations would enable the city to market the sites as international tourist destinations.
In other news, the Keelung-based National Museum of Marine Science and Technology’s underwater cameras on Monday filmed a giant barrel sponge spawning in Chaojing Bay (潮境海灣).
Museum official Chen Li-shu (陳麗淑) said that giant barrel sponges are the biggest such animals living in the waters near Taiwan, most of which have been spotted off northern Taiwan and Penghu County.
They usually spawn from late spring to the summer solstice and prefer water temperatures of 26°C to 27°C, she said, adding that the museum’s volunteer divers found 20 to 25 sponges spawning, or about 30 percent of all the sponges in the area.
Giant barrel sponges provide shelter for fish and coral recovering from typhoon damage, she said, citing research conducted by Huang Yu-sheng (黃俞升), a Penghu-based marine biology expert.
Museum curator Chen Su-fen (陳素芬) asked the public to treat the precious, immobile animals with care so that more juvenile sponges can grow in the area.
Police have detained a Taoyuan couple suspected of over the past two months colluding with human trafficking rings and employment scammers in Southeast Asia to send nearly 100 Taiwanese jobseekers to Cambodia. At a media briefing in Taipei yesterday, the Criminal Investigation Bureau presented items seized from the couple, including alleged victims’ passports, forged COVID-19 vaccination records, mobile phones, bank documents, checks and cash. The man, surnamed Tsai (蔡), and his girlfriend, surnamed Tsan (詹), were taken into custody last month, after police at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport stopped four jobseekers from boarding a flight to Phnom Penh, said Dustin Lee (李泱輯),
BILINGUAL PLAN: The 17 educators were recruited under a program that seeks to empower Taiwanese, the envoy to the Philippines said The Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in the Philippines on Thursday hosted a send-off event for the first group of English-language teachers from the country who were recruited for a Ministry of Education-initiated program to advance bilingual education in Taiwan. The 14 teachers and three teaching assistants are part of the Taiwan Foreign English Teacher Program, which aims to help find English-language instructors for Taiwan’s public elementary and junior-high schools, the office said. Seventy-seven teachers and 11 teaching assistants from the Philippines have been hired to teach in Taiwan in the coming school year, office data showed. Among the first group is 57-year-old
TRICKED INTO MOVING: Local governments in China do not offer any help, and Taiwanese there must compete with Chinese in an unfamiliar setting, a researcher said Beijing’s incentives for Taiwanese businesspeople to invest in China are only intended to lure them across the Taiwan Strait, after which they receive no real support, an expert said on Sunday. Over the past few years, Beijing has been offering a number of incentives that “benefit Taiwanese in name, while benefiting China in reality,” a cross-strait affairs expert said on condition of anonymity. Strategies such as the “31 incentives” are intended to lure Taiwanese talent, capital and technology to help address China’s economic issues while also furthering its “united front” efforts, they said. Local governments in China do not offer much practical
‘ORDINARY PEOPLE’: A man watching Taiwanese military drills said that there would be nothing anyone could do if the situation escalates in the Taiwan Strait Many people in Taiwan look upon China’s military exercises over the past week with calm resignation, doubting that war is imminent and if anything, feeling pride in their nation’s determination to defend itself. After a visit to Taiwan last week by US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, China has sent ships and aircraft across an unofficial buffer between Taiwan and China’s coast and missiles over Taipei and into waters surrounding the nation since Thursday last week. However, Rosa Chang, proudly watching her son take part in Taiwanese military exercises that included dozens of howitzers firing shells into the Taiwan Strait off
RSS