Media Focus
Oysters for Oil
Xinmin Weekly September 14, 2011
Taiwanese environmental protection organizations have finally pressured the island’s government to cease construction of the controversial Guoguang petrochemical plant in the Dacheng wetlands, a 2000-hectare beach noted for its 300-year tradition of oyster cultivation. Although the project was expected to have an output equivalent to 2 percent of Taiwan’s annual GDP and create 250,000 jobs, opponents argued that the resulting pollution would damage local ecology and expose nearby residents to a heightened risk of cancer. However, as many new petrochemical projects are also being suspended, economists are speculating that the petrochemical industry, a major contributor to Taiwan’s GDP, is now in terminal decline. For Taiwanese NGOs, however, the bigger challenge is to find an alternative source of economic growth, with many pointing to tourism as a solution to declining prosperity along the island’s coastline.
December 2011
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