Qigu fishermen roar in anger: aquavoltaics plunder farmland, landlords terminate contracts, fish farmers face a survival crisis

"We want to survive! Down with solar power!" More than 200 fishermen from Qixing, Tainan, with yellow headbands tied around their heads, arrived at the Tainan City Government early yesterday (5/16) and angrily dumped clam shells to protest the government's hasty push for "aquaculture-solar co-existence." In recent years, solar power companies have been aggressively enclosing land in Qixing to build solar panels over fish ponds, and fishermen's livelihoods have borne the brunt. Many landowners, tempted by high rents, have taken their land back and stopped leasing it to fishermen. The livelihoods of more than 2,000 people across the entire Qixing aquaculture industry chain could be affected.

Qixing fishermen roar in anger. Qixing is one of the very few areas in the country that does not pump groundwater for aquaculture, and its environmentally friendly clams have already built a good reputation. Why must solar power be developed here of all places? They are even more worried that large areas of solar panels will affect the habitat of the black-faced spoonbill, an internationally important conservation bird, and that the ecological and tourism achievements built up through years of hard work could be destroyed overnight.

This Friday (the 17th), the Tainan City Government will hold a review meeting for the first application. Fishermen are deeply worried, believing that both the regulations and the research are incomplete, and that there has been no sufficient communication with local residents. "If this one passes, the ones after it will be unstoppable!" Residents strongly demand that the government suspend the review, otherwise they do not rule out more intense protests, and they further call out: "Chen Chi-chung, minister of the Council of Agriculture, should come to our Haipu land in person and listen to the voices of the fishermen!"