[3325]Ecological Photographs Along Changhua Coast Lines Raise Up Environmental Concern

Taiwan Church News

3325 Edition

November 16 – 22, 2015

Church Ministry

 

Ecological Photographs Along Changhua Coast Lines Raise Up Environmental Concern

 

Reported by Simon Lin from Changhua

 

During a joint prayer week of YMCA and YWCA,  Mr. Hwang Tsau-chou, a famous environmental photographer, was invited by YMCA Changhua to share his photographs and deliver a lecture, entitled as “The Environmental Change Along Changhua Coast Lines”, on 15 November.

 

Mr. Chen Chi-zhe, General Secretary of YMCA, remarked that though YMCA had endeavored to serve the marginalized and the oppressed of Taiwan society for years, a concern for the environment was still scarce. Chen hoped, through the pictures and observations by Hwang Tsau-chou, a green concern toward the ecology of Changhua could be raised up.

 

In his lecture with photographs, Hwang recalled, when he was still a teacher in 1989, how he was deeply impressed but embarrassingly incapable to tell the names of those hundreds of thousands dunlins flying in order up to the sky along Changhua Coast Line.

 

In his last 25 years, after retirement, Hwang spent most of his time tramping along the coast lines between Dadu River and Zhoushui River and recording the versatile ecologies of those wild birds. Illustraing with pictures, Hwang introduced many habits and outlooks of lots of Taiwan wild birds to the audience. He also convincingly explained how the dunlins were decreased due to the human destruction of their habitats.

 

Although Changhua county has the most beautiful coast lines in Taiwan, Hwang lamented that since 1995 these national scenarios were also the designated sites of heavy and polluted industries, for example, Taichung Power Plant located at the place near Dadu Estuary area, Kuokuang Petrochemical Plant almost occupied Fang-yuan Township and FPC’s Sixth Naphtha Cracker Complex situated at Zhoushui Estuary area.

 

“Though Changhua county was praised as the ‘grain barn of Taiwan’, but air pollution in urban areas was very serious”, said Hwang, especially black smogs, which might have caused fatal allergies and asthma, were still kept being produced unceasingly from Formosa Chemicals & Fibre Corporation. “Air, water and sunshine do not belong to financial groups or politicians exclusively, they belong to all people!”, Hwang exclaimed.

 

Translated by Peter Wolfe

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