With a love for learning and a love for the Earth, and three hours a week, a group of older students turned an abandoned plot of land in their neighborhood into a wetland conservation site.
The group of 51 students at Shilin Community College held an eco-pond completion ceremony yesterday and promised to maintain the wetland even after their class is finished.
“Building the pond is only the beginning. With it I’m going to teach them how to be environmental educators and guide people through wetlands,” said Chen Te-hong (陳德鴻), head of the Society of Wilderness and the class teacher.
WETLANDS’ VITAL ROLE
Wetlands are an important source of nutrition for many types of plants, animals and insects, as well as an important habitat for them, he said.
“The damage done to wetlands is more severe than people think,” he said.
Fortunately in recent years more people are starting to pay attention to what they are doing to the environment, Chen said, adding that the concept of “land morality” is beginning to be spread.
“The idea of land morality is to let nature take over when it comes to ‘designing’ a green space,” he said.
For example, the constructed wetland that Chen’s class built doesn’t have carefully pruned trees and mown grass.
ACCORDING TO NATURE
“We are educated to think that orderly is the way parks should be, but we should provide an opportunity for the environment to evolve according to nature, rather than demanding that trees and grasses comply with human desires,” he said.
The student leader of the class, Liao Yong-song (廖永松), who is in his 60s, said the class was very meaningful to him and that he wished to become an “ecosystem maintainer” and guide at the site after he finishes the course.
“We have planted many things that should originally have existed here [if the land hadn’t been damaged],” Liao said.
Most of the students were surprised to learn what nature should be like, how much damage humans have done to it and why the survival of small animals and plants is directly linked to human survival, he said.
PYRAMID
“The food chain is like a pyramid with humans at the top. If the life forms on the bottom — which support the beings in the middle — don’t survive, then humanity will face collapse,” Liao said.
“When we try and conserve and protect nature we are actually protecting ourselves,” Liao said.
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
The High Prosecutors’ Office yesterday withdrew an appeal against the acquittal of a former bank manager 22 years after his death, marking Taiwan’s first instance of prosecutors rendering posthumous justice to a wrongfully convicted defendant. Chu Ching-en (諸慶恩) — formerly a manager at the Taipei branch of BNP Paribas — was in 1999 accused by Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾), then-president of Chia Her Industrial Co, of forging a request for a fixed deposit of US$10 million by I-Hwa Industrial Co, a subsidiary of Chia Her, which was used as collateral. Chu was ruled not guilty in the first trial, but was found guilty
A wild live dugong was found in Taiwan for the first time in 88 years, after it was accidentally caught by a fisher’s net on Tuesday in Yilan County’s Fenniaolin (粉鳥林). This is the first sighting of the species in Taiwan since 1937, having already been considered “extinct” in the country and considered as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. A fisher surnamed Chen (陳) went to Fenniaolin to collect the fish in his netting, but instead caught a 3m long, 500kg dugong. The fisher released the animal back into the wild, not realizing it was an endangered species at
DEADLOCK: As the commission is unable to forum a quorum to review license renewal applications, the channel operators are not at fault and can air past their license date The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday said that the Public Television Service (PTS) and 36 other television and radio broadcasters could continue airing, despite the commission’s inability to meet a quorum to review their license renewal applications. The licenses of PTS and the other channels are set to expire between this month and June. The National Communications Commission Organization Act (國家通訊傳播委員會組織法) stipulates that the commission must meet the mandated quorum of four to hold a valid meeting. The seven-member commission currently has only three commissioners. “We have informed the channel operators of the progress we have made in reviewing their license renewal applications, and
RSS