The Ministry of National Defense’s 202 Munitions Works in Taipei City’s Nangang District (南港) is about to be relocated. This land, which contains 144 hectares of what may be the last big patch of greenery in Taipei City, will be turned over to big business. While businesspeople will profit from it, the ecology will suffer.
The Cabinet and the Taipei City Government should consider Taiwan’s ecology and change policies that erode green areas. They should rather turn this piece of land into Taipei City’s largest and most important ecological park and thereby add some beauty to the city.
The city government has proposed a special zoning plan which will assign 57 of the 144 hectares for construction purposes. Businesses will be able to establish operational headquarters, factories and housing there, which will further result in the erosion of the natural environment.
The Cabinet is now trying to force Academia Sinica out of an adjacent 25 hectare site that has been formally assigned to the academy for the establishment of a national biotechnology park after a change to the urban development plan. It seems the intention is to expand the land given to businesses. The Cabinet and the city government are therefore working together to help big business take possession of the last 170 hectares of unspoilt land in Taipei.
Last week, several media outlets reported that the establishment of the biotechnological park would destroy the environment where the Armed Forces 202 Munitions Works is sited. Their information came from the same source, as if some organization wanted to make Academia Sinica look bad.
In fact, the park, which is planned by Academia Sinica and other government institutions, stems from a government policy and was finalized after Taipei changed its urban development plan. Of the 25 hectares allocated to Academia Sinica, 9 hectares were approved for development purposes.
What the media didn’t seem to have the slightest clue about was that the 144-hectare piece of land where the 202 Munitions Works are sited, which is six times the size of the land given to Academia Sinica, is about to be opened up to commercial development. Their reports did not mention how the government’s special zoning plan will wreak havoc on Taipei’s environment.
The main plan is to designate 57 hectares, or 39.6 percent of the 144 hectares, with an average gradient of less than 30 percent, for construction. The plan also includes converting the area into an ecologically and environmentally friendly science and technology park that will house the operational headquarters, research and development centers and incubation centers of big corporations building experimental, smart and ecologically and environmentally friendly residential housing and the necessary infrastructure.
It is hard to imagine why the Taipei City Government would openly propose a plan that will involve businesses setting up large operational headquarters, technological and industrial research and development facilities, an incubation center and even luxury housing disguised as “experimental smart ecologically and environmentally friendly residential housing.”
What’s more, the city government will also allow big businesses to make even more profit from the development of the land, because the development plan will also involve opening the area to bids from contractors.
I do not know why the Cabinet is in such a hurry to hand over 170 hectares of unspoilt land to big business. I also don’t understand why former Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) minister, now Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) — who was the spokesperson for Yann Arthus-Bertrand and Luc Besson’s film Home about how humanity is threatening the global ecological balance — is now proposing a plan that is going to destroy the ecology of that area.
In 2003, as EPA minister, Hau, out of respect for environmental impact assessments and because he hoped to protect the water quality of the Feitsui Reservoir (翡翠水庫), was staunchly against building the Pinglin Interchange and even resigned over the matter. Last year, he participated in the Chinese dubbing of Home, saying we do not have much time to change and that the Earth is unable to handle the heavy burden placed on it by humans, with 20 percent of the world’s population using up 80 percent of global resources.
I want to tell Hau that we really do not have much time left and that he is playing a leading role in allowing big business, representing a minority of the population, to destroy the last of Taipei’s remaining unspoilt land. I am not sure what Mayor Hau thinks about EPA minister Hau, or how he would explain himself to Arthus-Bertrand and Besson for his role in helping corporations destroy the planet.
Chiu Hei-yuan is a research fellow at the Academia Sinica’s Institute of Sociology.
TRANSLATED BY DREW CAMERON
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