Environmentalists yesterday asked the public to save coastal wetlands in Changhua County by purchasing land to prevent it from being sold to a petrochemical company to build oil refineries.
The Kuo-kuang Petrochemical Technology Corp (KPTC), a subsidiary of CPC Taiwan Corp, plans to build refineries on coastal wetland in Dacheng Township (大城), Changhua County, near the mouth of Jhuoshuei River (濁水溪).
The plan has sparked controversy, with many residents — especially oyster farmers — worried that a petrochemical plant would bring pollution and destroy the oyster farming industry.
Environmentalists worry that the planned refineries would be disastrous for the diverse wetland ecology — notably critically endangered pink dolphins.
Opponents of the petrochemical plant want to block the plan by purchasing the most sensitive 200 hectares of the 4,000 hectares that the KPTC would like to buy.
“According to the National Property Administration, the current value of the land in the area is only NT$100 [US$3] per square meter, so why don’t we put our money together to purchase 200 hectares of the most sensitive land?” Taiwan Environmental Protection Union Changhua Division director Tsai Chia-yang (蔡嘉陽) said.
Tsai said they are calling on the public to purchase a share of the land for NT$119 each.
Since the group started the campaign on April 11, more than 22,000 people have written letters of intent to express their willingness to purchase more than 850,000 of land.
“We will file an application for charitable trust by the end of the month,” Tsai told a press conference yesterday. “I’m not sure if it will be approved, but if it is turned down, it will be turning down the will of tens of thousands of people.”
Changhua-based poet Wu Sheng (吳晟) accused the government and KPTC of “covering up their hearts” when making the decision to set up oil refineries on the wetlands.
“It’s not just about saving the endangered pink dolphins, [refineries] will also destroy a farming and fishing culture passed down from generation to generation for hundreds of years,” Wu said.
“Big corporations and government keep tricking us with a bunch of numbers — they tell us about increases in GDP, employment and economic prosperity the oil refineries would bring — but they never tell us what we would lose,” he said. “And let me tell you, what we would lose would be much more than what we gain, so we don’t want this kind of GDP growth.”
Diane Wilson, author of the book An Unreasonable Woman, who started a campaign against Formosa Plastics Oil refineries along her native gulf coast in Texas, also shared her personal experience of the environmental catastrophe oil refineries can bring, and said she would stand in solidarity with Taiwanese who are against the planned KTPC refineries in Changhua.
‘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