Are only activists protesting against Changhua’s air pollution?

Taiwan's coal power plant at Wuchi, Taichung was named by Nature magazine as the world's dirtiest power plant.

Today's Taipei Times tells us that "Activists protest against Changhua's air pollution." The article goes on to say that "Environmental activists rallied in front of the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) yesterday afternoon, demanding it set an upper limit for the total air pollutant emissions for central Taiwan and establish an air quality monitoring station in Changhua County." It would seem those pesky, nothing-better-to-do environmental activists are at it again. But is it just activists that are getting upset? In recent weeks we've seen tens of thousands of people come out in protest of various issues from military abuse to the Dapu demolitions. We've seen two defense ministers go in a week. And were all those protesting citizens that took to the streets activists? Certainly not! They were regular people like you and me upset at the abuse of power by the authorities and this time they have a legitimate concern about air pollution in central Taiwan. Afterall, two of the world's top ten dirtiest power plants are located in that area. But time and time again when concerned folks take to the streets they are labeled as activists and made to look like a bunch of hippy radicals. This brings to mind a letter that appeared in the Taipei Times last year; It's all in the name. 

Taipei Times letter- July 30, 2012.

It’s all in the name

What one calls a terrorist another calls a liberator. It is all in the name; how those who hold power or desire power wish the masses to perceive something. The media obviously plays its part in all this.

Take the Taipei Times article “Environmentalists protest over EIA” (July 26, page 3). Environmentalists? Images of long-haired hippie types stuck in a 1960s mindset rambling on about free love and Mother Earth come to mind. And I am pretty sure that is just what some politicians, developers and corporations want you to think. “Yeah, the lunatic fringe up in arms again causing disruptions!”

The first paragraph of the article read as follows:

“Environmentalists yesterday protested against an environmental impact assessment (EIA) for an expansion project at a naphtha cracker complex that failed to include fine particles.”

You would be forgiven for thinking it was just those pesky environmentalists that have a problem with an environmental impact assessment for the fourth phase expansion project at Formosa Plastics Corp’s sixth naphtha cracker complex in Yunlin County’s Mailiao Township (麥寮). Some group of crazy green bunny-huggers whining about fine particles not being listed.

Now, let us delete “environmentalists” and give a more accurate description of those that typically are present at these protests against the expansion projects down in Mailao:

“Concerned local residents, civic groups, fishers, farmers, workers, teachers, academics, parents, lawyers, doctors, conservation and environmental groups yesterday protested against an EIA for an expansion project at a naphtha cracker complex that failed to include fine particles.”

OK, it is a bit long, but you get the point. It sounds different, doesn’t it? It changes things. We relate to these people. They are us. They do not sound so loony.

However, the Taipei Times so often boxes these regular folks and organizations as “environmentalists” or “activists” or some other “ism.” I am sure the so-called developers must smile at this subtle eroding of Joe Citizen’s image and credibility.

You see. It is not just environmentalists that are pissed off with Formosa Plastics and its toxic hell down in Mailiao. After all the pollution, fires, greed and lack of ethics, after soaring cancer rates, dirty air and smokey gray skies, people have had enough. They want to know why the Environmental Protection Agency allows this toxic nightmare to continue.

However, others would have you believe it is just some nutty environmentalists who have a problem with it.

T.W. Sousa, Yunlin County

New wasp species found in Taiwan

The newly described wasp Hydrophylita emporos riding on a damselfly. Photo Wikimedia Commons.


With one of the highest counts of biodiversity per square kilometre on the planet, it really isn't surprising that new species continued to be discovered on Taiwan. And once again the discovery stresses the need to protect Taiwan's incredibly rich fragile environment. So much of natural Taiwan has disappeared under layers of concrete before the complex ecosystems it hosted could be studied. Yet, government continues to kowtow to heavy industry and their destructive brand of "development." And so one of the most remarkable natural wonders on the planet will continued to be trashed for a quick buck because a few already very rich people can grow even richer raping Taiwan's natural resources while spinning the myth that it benefits us all.

The Taipei Times reports that "a team of entomologists from National Taiwan University have discovered a new species — a tiny wasp that relies on damselflies for procreation." Read the story of the discovery of Hydrophylita emporos; a wasp within a genus that has just four other species and that until this discovery was confined to South America.

  

Turtle Smuggling

Yellow-margined Box Turtle, photo Wikipedia.


Today's Taipei Times reports that "The Coast Guard Administration on Saturday intercepted 2,626 protected turtles being smuggled to China, seizing them and handing them over to the Forestry Bureau for emergency treatment and examination."

The article goes on to say that there was found to be "1,446 yellow-margined box turtles (aka. snake-eating turtle) and 1,180 Asian brown pond turtles — both listed under rare valuable species according to the Wildlife Conservation Act (野生動物保育法)."

The Yellow-margined box turtle (Cuora flavomarginata) is a land turtle/tortoise native to Taiwan and is listed on the INCN list of Red Data species as Endangered. The smuggling of turtles to China and other countries for food or the pet trade has become big business. In the current tough economic climate there has been a marked increase in poaching. Many villagers see poaching as a way to make money when other jobs are hard to come by.

Taipower vows Gongliao plant is safe! Believe them? They've seen the future......?

The Taipei Times reported today under the following headline that "Taipower vows Gongliao plant is safe." The article goes on to say that Taipower says, "The company gave its assurances on the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant after a member of a monitoring committee expressed doubts over the facility’s design." That member of the monitoring committee isn't the only one to express doubts. To a great many citizens that remember the Fukushima nuclear disaster in neighboring Japan it just doesn't seem safe to have a nuclear plant located near volcanoes on and island prone to earthquakes and typhoons. Earthquakes can generate tsunamis and Taiwan is an island on the Pacific rim just the same as Japan. A number of so-called wise people in the employ of Taipower and the government assure us that the plant is safe. While a lot of other wise people say it isn't. This brings to mind a letter written by Yain Tsai that appeared in the Liberty Times last year. Some good food for thought. Here's a translation of that letter.

Sleep well Taipei !

Nuclear Safety: Taiwan Dawdles Behind the Philippines

By TSAI Yain

Recent news reports picked up on Prof. CHEN Zhenghong’s warnings that an eruption of the Datun volcanoes could result in two to three meters of ash falling on the nearby first and second nuclear plants. CHEN, former deputy minister of the National Science Council is currently a professor of geology at National Taiwan University. In response, Atomic Energy Council Minister TSAI Chunhong has said if we really were to encounter such a scenario he has no idea how to handle it.

CHEN’s warnings bring to mind the 1990 film “Dreams” by Japanese director Akira Kurosawa, where the sixth “dream” describes an eruption of Mount Fuji and the resulting molten lava spills onto six nearby nuclear power reactors. As the people flee from the exploding plants, a person cries: “Japan is too small; we simply have nowhere to hide!” Finally they flee to the beach, and with nowhere to escape, they jump into the sea. Even the dolphins can’t escape the disaster. Meanwhile, nuclear power personnel, in their protective suits and ties look on as the sky fills with highly toxic plutonium 239, strontium 90, cesium 137 and other deadly isotopes forming radioactive clouds. They exclaim how the folly of humankind surpasses all imagination. Given their understanding of immense pain and suffering in store for those exposed to high doses of radiation, the “suits” apologize to the people around them before taking their own lives by jumping into the apocalyptic ocean. 

This 20-year-old film is now seen as somewhat prophetic in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster. While these words of warning failed to prevent the Fukushima nuclear disaster, perhaps it is not too late for Taiwan to heed the warning? Could Taiwan prevent a nuclear catastrophe if the Datun volcanoes erupted? 

Taiwan’s first and second nuclear plants, with a total of four reactors are built next to the Datun volcanic group. An eruption would surely lead to nuclear disaster; and with Taiwan being much smaller than Japan, we would have even less chance of escape. With the Atomic Energy Council’s minister admitting that he does not know how to deal with such a disaster what are ordinary people expected to think or do? 

The Bataan Nuclear Power Plant in the Philippines was built close to volcanoes and faults. Although the construction was completed, for security reasons, the plant has never gone into operation. The first and second nuclear power plants in Taiwan lie on active faults near the Datun volcanoes. Their proximity to metropolitan areas means that a serious nuclear incident would affect millions of people. It is absolutely imperative that the government moves now to decommission these plants and remove this insanely cataclysmic threat to the people of Taiwan.     

Yain TSAI is a lawyer with the Wild at Heart Legal Defense Association, Taiwan and also chairs the Environmental Law Committee of the Taipei Bar Association.

Paddy fields and mist nets

The train was approaching Taichung from the south but it could have been anywhere in Taiwan. The grey Smokey skies. The haze. The paddy fields. The vegetable gardens and fruit orchards. Typical lowland Taiwan farmland. The green paddy fields were dotted with the snow white of Cattle and Little Egrets. Doves, sparrows, drongos and swallows winged overhead or perched along the telephone lines and power cables. A first glance the scene appeared almost timeless. Baring the modern buildings and infrastructure the fields looked pretty much as they must have a century ago and a century before that. But they weren’t. The mud and stone retaining walls had been replaced by reinforced concrete walls. The rows of rice plants were too precise to have been planted by hand. Great hoses connected to large fertilizer pumps sprayed great white clouds of chemicals to nourish the growing rice. Rice farming had changed.

The young rice plants arrive in trays from the nursery factory. They have been grown in a synthetic material, not soil. The trays are loaded onto a mechanical sowing machine and planted in soils that have been plowed by tractors that replaced the water buffalo of yesteryear. The water level in the paddy is controlled by electric pumps or an elaborate system of concrete canals with great metal gates and valves. The fertilizer pumps will pump out their white chemical clouds and when the rice is ready a motorized harvester will reap the harvest. With no need for animal fodder, compost or thatched roofs the rice stalks are no longer needed. The great hut-shaped haystacks that were such a feature of the Taiwan countryside 50 years ago are gone. They have been made redundant by the machines. The stalks will just be burned and the great clouds of smoke will mark the harvest. Farming practices the world over have changed. The farms of our grandparents are but a memory.

A short time before the train had passed the village of Ershui. Ershui means two rivers or two waters. It is a quaint little place. It retains some old world charm. It’s set below lush green hills at the confluence of the Jhoushui and Chingshui Rivers. I know a man that came from Ershui. He lives in Taichung now. Anyway, one Saturday he had mentioned that he was going back to Ershui to harvest the rice in his father’s field. He went on to tell me that his father has a small rice paddy which he plants. He’s a retired civil servant but the rice paddy helps him feel connected to the land that his father and grandfather once farmed. He then went on to explain that they don’t actually eat the rice because the water used for irrigation is so unhealthy and full of chemicals that they feel it would be unwise to eat the rice. He then added that an elderly aunt; he gave her age as 85; still eats the rice though. She feels attached to the fields that sustained her and her family for so many generations. She says it’s the most delicious rice in the world. They let her eat the rice because she is so old. They don’t tell her about the chemicals. I asked what they did with the rest of the rice. He replied the paddy was very small so it didn’t produce much rice. They put aside a few bags for the old aunt and the rest they got rid of. He didn’t elaborate. For a moment I wondered how much “dirty” rice must enter the system; and then the thought faded into the haze.

If you look out the train window you will notice that many fields and orchards have thin bamboo poles sticking up all over the place. From a distance they appear as if they must be some kind of marker. And yes, they do mark something. They are the uprights for mist nets. Thin plastic monofilament nets that are almost invisible to the naked eye and are placed to trap birds. Not just trap birds but to kill birds; to exterminate them.


 
A bunting hangs helpless in a farmer’s mist net.


In grandpa’s time there were no mist needs. They made do banging tins together to scare off the birds. Sure they hunted the birds but the numbers they killed just were never as many as you can trap with a mist net.

Birds are indicators of the health of the environment. While the situation has not been ideal, many species of bird have successfully adapted to the farmland environment created by humanity over the millennia. But the farmland environment that they adapted to was not soaked in clouds of fertilizer and insecticide sprays. It was not maintained by great mechanical machines. Mist nets did not form invisible barriers of death. And so across the planet farmland species are in decline. And data from national bird surveys have shown sudden alarming plunges in the numbers of some of our most common bird species; the Eurasian Tree Sparrow and the Striated Swallow.

We know that bird numbers in general are in decline. Some may barely show that they are declining. Some may even increase in the short-term as a new opportunity opens up but in most instances this is false hope. It is merely a hill on the slope down the mountain. An example would be a raptor species that temporarily thrives because as the forest is cut down hunting becomes easier because prey has less cover. But ultimately the prey will disappear with the loss of the forest and the raptor starts sliding down the slope again, this time only faster.

We don’t know what has caused such a sudden increase in the decline of some farmland species in Taiwan since 2009. Perhaps a combination of some new chemical coupled with the loss of habitat and, and, and… It takes time to pinpoint the definite causes of the sudden dramatic decline. What is known is that great numbers of farmland birds are perishing in nets. Nobody knows how many and on the whole nobody is monitoring this. But yet we permit this indiscriminate practice to continue unchecked.

A few years ago I recall a student who was prosecuted for torturing a parrot when footage of the student doing so was posted on the internet. It is right that this person was prosecuted for cruelty and abuse of an animal. But surely the people that erect mist nets with the purpose of trapping birds which will die a slow painful and lingering death of thirst, exhaustion and exposure are just as guilty of cruelty to animals as the student that was. And what of bycatch? Those countless birds of species that don’t eat grains or fruits that perish in the nets. In my observations, they often greatly outnumber those that do eat crops and fruit. Many of these birds eat insects and so actually benefit the farmer. Sure, farmers have a right to protect crops. But like this? And when we know that so many species are in such serious decline?


 
Almost invisible to the naked eye, a mist net is set along the edge of a paddy field.


I look at my watch and I’ll be in Taichung in about ten minutes. My view of the green paddy fields is suddenly blocked. The woman next to the window has just pulled down the blind to shut out the morning sun. Her eyes return to the screen of her smart phone. I look along the aisle and think who gives a damn about the sparrows anyway!

Taiwan? Um...

 

 

So, what do you know about Taiwan? Some confuse it with Thailand and others would likely babble something about an 'economic miracle' or its defiance of China. But there are some, and sadly they are few in number, whose eyes would twinkle and their thoughts would fill with images of wondrous mountain peaks, emerald forests… But surely, that can’t be so.

As one of Asia’s little dragons; Taiwan’s tends to be associated with computers, gadgets and electronic wares. And yes, this is very much what Taiwan is about. Taiwan wouldn’t even enter the heads of most folks looking to see some of the East Asian region’s natural wonders as a 'must see' travel destination. And that is really sad and just goes to show how little most people know about this little natural wonderland straddling the Tropic of Cancer on the East Asian Pacific Rim.

Taiwan, which covers an area of 36,000 square kilometers, may be small (0.025 percent of the total land on earth) but it showcase’s the entire range of climates from tropical to subarctic. This gives rise to an amazingly high level of biodiversity that few places on earth can match.

Rising from tropical beaches to the highest mountains in East Asia (3952m, with over 200 peaks higher than 3000m), Taiwan is in many ways a living laboratory housing samples of almost all of Asia’s ecosystems.

"Small but incredibly diverse and beautiful" would aptly describe Taiwan’s natural environment. Taiwan boasts over 46, 360 described species of flora and fauna. Ten percent of the world’s marine species are found in the waters around Taiwan. 4,200 species of vascular plants grow in Taiwan which includes a staggering 700 species of ferns.

Taiwan has a very high level of endemism: 25 percent of Taiwan’s 4,200 species of vascular plants; 30 percent of 70 mammal species; 12 percent of 150 freshwater fish species; 60 percent of the 20,000 insect species which includes more than 400 butterfly species; 31 percent of amphibians; and 22 percent of reptiles. Of the more than 605 bird species recorded on Taiwan’s bird list 24 are endemic and found nowhere else. More than 60 are endemic subspecies with several likely to be raised to full endemic species after more scientific evaluation.

Taiwan also occupies a prominent position on the East Asian Flyway. The autumn raptor migration through Taiwan’s southern tip is amongst the world’s twenty largest, with figures as high as 50,000 raptors from 26 diurnal raptor species being recorded in a single day at the climax of the fall migration period.

Taiwan has a total of 53 IBAs or Important Bird Areas. For its size, Taiwan has a very high number of IBAs. Only 11 or 21% fall within totally protected areas. 17 IBAs or 32% fall within partially protected areas. That leaves 25 or 47% of Taiwan’s IBAs without any protection.

Taiwan’s economic growth came at a great cost to Taiwan’s fragile environment. Much of natural Taiwan disappeared in clouds of pollution and storms of development but there are still natural areas left and these areas desperately need protection.

Because of Taiwan’s small land area, the impact of over exploitation of its natural resources all too often is catastrophic. Exploitation of Taiwan’s forests by the camphor and timber industries destroyed much of the island’s old growth forests; especially at lower to mid altitudes. The uncontrolled hunting of the Formosan sika deer lead to its near extinction by the early part of the twentieth century. This, coupled with post World War II development resulting in the destruction of remaining sika habitat, pushed the species over the brink and by the late 1960s the species became extinct in the wild. Today, a small token population of this once abundant species has been reintroduced to Kenting National Park using “wild turned” domestic stock. Taiwan’s Clouded Leopards haven’t been seen for years and are almost certainly now extinct.

Whaling in the waters around Taiwan resulted in the extermination of the population of humpback whales that once wintered in the waters off southern Taiwan. Now, sightings of large whales in the waters around Taiwan are extremely rare but whaling records show that humpback, sperm, fin, blue, and sei whales were all taken in these waters during the twentieth century.

It is also known that the dugong was found off the west coast before development destroyed its seagrass habitat. Today, a unique Taiwan population of fewer than a hundred Taiwan pink dolphins looks likely to follow their recently extinct Yangtze River dolphin cousins over the edge unless something drastic is done to save them. Despite their IUCN Red List status as Critically Endangered and their desperately small population size, the Taiwan Government seems willing to deal the death blow through further development of heavy industry along the west coast fueled by water from the controversial Hushan Dam project.

So what is being done? Local NGOs, like us at Wild are raising awareness and are challenging the authorities over environmental issues. But resources are limited and with very little, if any, international support, too often, in the game where the best presentation takes the prize, all to often we're no match for the heavy industry road-show in an EPA that still suffers from the legacy of having been a rubberstamp body of a totalitarian regime. But we're working to change all that!