Alangyi Trail noted by legislative candidates in campaign trail

["Taiwan Church News" <enews@pctpress.org>]

3124 Edition

January 9-15, 2012

Headline News

Alangyi Trail noted by legislative candidates in campaign trail

Reported by Chiu Kuo-rong

Written by Lydia Ma

Candidates contesting for at-large legislator seats in this election, such as 
Tien Chiu-Chin (DPP), Chiu Wen-yan (KMT), Chang Hsiao-feng (PFP), Chou Ni-an 
(TSU), and Green Party candidate Pan Han-sheng, took part in a press conference 
on January 6, 2012 on Ketagalan Boulevard where they signed a statement 
promising to protect and preserve Alangyi Trail. They also said they would push 
for securing funds from the national budget to designate Alangyi as a special 
ecological and cultural area.

The press conference was organized by Pingtung Environmental Protection 
Alliance, which rallied 19 other environmental groups, to announce to the Ma 
administration that there were already more than 100 schools, 911 social 
organizations, and 58,698 citizens who had signed pledges asking the government 
to scrap plans to build Provincial Highway 26 so as to preserve the remaining 
1% of Taiwan’s natural coastline.

Braving wind and rain, these organizations staged a play about endangered whale 
belugas in Taiwan’s west coast swimming all the way to Taiwan’s east coast to 
save and defend the natural habitat of an endangered green turtle species along 
Alangyi’s shores. 

According to Pingtung Environmental Protection Alliance CEO Hong Hui-hsiang, 
this species of green turtle is considered endangered by the United Nations and 
Alangyi is one of its natural habitats. If the Taiwanese government builds a 
highway across Alangyi, it can expect to be reprimanded by the United Nations.

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