Taiwan may be an island, surrounded by sea, but a recent survey has shown that people in the nation fared poorly in their knowledge of the oceanic environment.
The survey, carried out by Taiwan Environmental Info Association (TEIA), asked 600 fifth and sixth-graders and some adults about their understanding of Taiwan’s maritime landscape. Results showed that less than 50 percent of respondents knew that the country’s coastline is 1,600km long and only 43 percent could accurately name Fugueijiao (富貴角) as the northernmost end of Taiwan.
Meanwhile, only 48 percent knew that the nation’s largest lagoon is located in Cigu District (七股) in Greater Tainan.
While the heavily polluted algal reef in Taoyuan County’s Guanyin Township (觀音) has garnered much media attention recently, 75 percent of the respondents did not know it was the nation’s largest algal reef, and about 40 percent thought it was in Taitung County.
The survey also found that 70 percent of respondents did not know that Dongsha Atoll National Park is the nation’s only marine national park. While 95 percent of the respondents said they like the sea, 50 percent of them reported that they do not go to the beach regularly.
With yesterday marking World Oceans Day, TEIA secretary-general, Chen Juei-ping (陳瑞賓), said the survey findings showed that there was an urgency to reinforce education about Taiwan’s marine environment.
“Most people’s understanding of the sea is still limited to eating seafood and playing water sports,” he said. “If people fail to possess even a basic knowledge of the ocean, the nation will lose the opportunity to react in time to the challenges brought about by climate change.”
As part of its efforts to educate the public about the sea environment, TEIA and Standard Chartered Bank have started a project to draw a map of the country’s coastline biodiversity, which is scheduled to be finished in January next year.
TEIA Environmental Trust Center director Sun Hsiu-ju (孫秀如) said all the information they gather will be put online and will be available to the public free of charge.
Taiwan’s first coastline map was drawn up by Dutch explorers in 1636 in which they delineated the shoal and the inter-tidal zone along the nation’s west coast near Dacheng (大城), Changhua County.
“From the [Dutch] maps, we can see that Taiwan is getting ‘skinnier’ because of coastline erosion and subsidence,” Sun said.
In related developments, the Fisheries Agency announced yesterday that the nation now has three levels of sea protection zones. For Type I zones, access is granted only to scientists and government officials charged with monitoring and restoring the environment and they are not allowed to damage the area’s eco-systems in any way.
Those entering Type II zones are banned from engaging in developing any of the natural or cultural resources and in Type III zones only limited development is permitted, which must be conducted under the principle of sustainable development, it said.
The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) yesterday said it had deployed patrol vessels to expel a China Coast Guard ship and a Chinese fishing boat near Pratas Island (Dongsha Island, 東沙群島) in the South China Sea. The China Coast Guard vessel was 28 nautical miles (52km) northeast of Pratas at 6:15am on Thursday, approaching the island’s restricted waters, which extend 24 nautical miles from its shoreline, the CGA’s Dongsha-Nansha Branch said in a statement. The Tainan, a 2,000-tonne cutter, was deployed by the CGA to shadow the Chinese ship, which left the area at 2:39pm on Friday, the statement said. At 6:31pm on Friday,
The Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy’s (PLAN) third aircraft carrier, the Fujian, would pose a steep challenge to Taiwan’s ability to defend itself against a full-scale invasion, a defense expert said yesterday. Institute of National Defense and Security Research analyst Chieh Chung (揭仲) made the comment hours after the PLAN confirmed the carrier recently passed through the Taiwan Strait to conduct “scientific research tests and training missions” in the South China Sea. China has two carriers in operation — the Liaoning and the Shandong — with the Fujian undergoing sea trials. Although the PLAN needs time to train the Fujian’s air wing and
Taiwanese celebrities Hank Chen (陳漢典) and Lulu Huang (黃路梓茵) announced yesterday that they are planning to marry. Huang announced and posted photos of their engagement to her social media pages yesterday morning, joking that the pair were not just doing marketing for a new show, but “really getting married.” “We’ve decided to spend all of our future happy and hilarious moments together,” she wrote. The announcement, which was later confirmed by the talent agency they share, appeared to come as a surprise even to those around them, with veteran TV host Jacky Wu (吳宗憲) saying he was “totally taken aback” by the news. Huang,
The American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) put Taiwan in danger, Ma Ying-jeou Foundation director Hsiao Hsu-tsen (蕭旭岑) said yesterday, hours after the de facto US embassy said that Beijing had misinterpreted World War II-era documents to isolate Taiwan. The AIT’s comments harmed the Republic of China’s (ROC) national interests and contradicted a part of the “six assurances” stipulating that the US would not change its official position on Taiwan’s sovereignty, Hsiao said. The “six assurances,” which were given by then-US president Ronald Reagan to Taiwan in 1982, say that Washington would not set a date for ending arm sales to Taiwan, consult
RSS