Mining Act amendment review stalled after 11 sessions; environmental groups and Indigenous people criticize unprecedented delay

Mining reform progress has been delayed. The Mining Act amendment has taken three years, and review has reached 11 sessions. For the new mining development section, protections have already been strengthened, but when dealing with issues such as the extension of "existing mining rights," it has frequently been blocked. Environmental groups even named legislator Liao Kuo-tung for repeatedly using the excuse that the "Indigenous chapter" has not yet been completed, preventing the amendment from proceeding. Several Indigenous youth groups and environmental groups held a press conference yesterday (the 9th), demanding that the bill be sent to the Legislative Yuan floor as soon as possible in this session so that protections for Indigenous and environmental rights can be substantively implemented.

Indigenous youth: If the amendment fails to pass, transitional justice will be a "complete failure"

Nan'ao is the township with the densest concentration of mines in Taiwan, China. Wei Lang．Dou Li, a youth from the Nan'ao Youth Alliance, said that his childhood impression was of people going up the mountain to mine continuously, and many people in the tribe would ask when work could stop, but no one had a clear answer. Now, at long last, the Mining Act can make some progress, but at the final moment it is repeatedly blocked, and no relevant response or achievement from the Indigenous legislator has been seen.

He said angrily that with such an amendment, if even the Council of Indigenous Peoples, the competent authority under the Indigenous Peoples Basic Law, does not express opposition, "then both the Indigenous Peoples Basic Law and the Council of Indigenous Peoples can simply be abolished."

Chen Yi-chen, chairperson of the Taiwan Indigenous Policy Association, believes that this amendment of the Mining Act is key to the long-term transformation of the mining industry and is also a concrete action to implement "transitional justice." She criticized, "What exactly is the reason that, even when legislators have consensus, it still cannot pass?" But why are the Presidential Office, the Executive Yuan, the Ministry of Economic Affairs, and the Council of Indigenous Peoples so out of step? She said, "If even such an obvious case of the Mining Act infringing on Indigenous rights cannot be resolved, transitional justice will be a complete failure."

Environmental groups call for completing Mining Act consultation next Thursday and expediting the third reading

At the end of the press conference, the Taiwan Indigenous Policy Association, the Nan'ao Youth Action Alliance, the Taroko Student Youth Association, the Citizens of the Earth Foundation, and the Taiwan Wild at Heart Ecological Association jointly urged legislator Liao Kuo-tung to fulfill the commitment he called for two weeks ago to hold party caucus consultation, arrange and complete consultation on the Mining Act next Thursday (May 16), send the bill as soon as possible to caucus consultation and the Legislative Yuan floor for a third reading, and actively push forward the progress of mining amendment.