Hualien's future is not for Charoen Pokphand and the King of Hualien to decide; it should be determined by the power of citizens

(Continued from the previous article) The anti-Charoen Pokphand movement spread rapidly across Hualien, becoming the largest environmental protest in Hualien in recent years, forcing the Hualien County Government to float the idea of "considering a postponement" on the eve of the march in an attempt to quell public anger, but it still failed to extinguish the fury. To date, more than 10,000 people have signed the petition in protest, and yesterday (the 20th) more than 1,200 people gathered for a march, over 70 percent of them local residents of Fenglin, an astonishing display of mobilizing strength.

In this environmental protest, besides a group of returning young people, migrants and locally rooted organizations coming together to pool their strength, the deeper driving force is that Hualien has long had its direction of development strongly dominated by those in power, leaving no room for public participation in Hualien's development vision. The long-suppressed force of civil society erupted powerfully because of this environmental protest.

Hualien has its own development model; it does not need to set limits on itself by the standards of the west in everything

On the eve of the big march, in front of Fenglin Railway Station, "Red Coffee" was brightly lit, with people coming and going, revealing a tense atmosphere of a battle about to begin. This is the gathering point of the Fenglin Self-Rescue Association. At seven o'clock, people arrived one after another. The bookstore owner Lisin, holding a poster board, repeatedly confirmed the details of the march with the association's cadre members.

The members of the Fenglin Self-Rescue Association span all walks of life, including cafe owners, neighborhood chiefs, retirees, farmers and returning young people, community workers and a theater troupe leader, and the owners of a lunchbox shop and a tofu pudding shop. This group of people are partly regulars at the cafe, and partly people who have long cared about local culture and public affairs, turning the cafe into a public space that gathers energy and making it the most important core group in this environmental movement.

"Hualien has a serious population outflow. People who stayed behind in the past were sometimes mocked as useless, as if everything in the west is the best." Lisin, the cafe owner from the Amis Fengxin tribe, has participated in public affairs since the Suhua Improvement issue ten years ago. She found that Hualien's biggest problem is that it has no confidence in itself, not knowing that the life Hualien possesses is exactly what westerners envy.

Returning young person You Yanchi said that the busy work in Taipei made him doubt life. Even riding a scooter, he could not find a parking space. When he felt very discouraged, he would especially miss Hualien. Only then did he realize that the simplicity and uncompetitiveness of the east was what made the east most memorable to him, so he chose to return to Hualien. Unexpectedly, large corporations are changing Hualien step by step. He believes residents have the right to defend their way of life.

Corporations come to Hualien to reap profits, while Hualien people bear the bitter fruit of environmental destruction

Theater troupe leader Liu Weikai added that westerners regard Hualien as a back garden of beautiful mountains and waters, and corporations covet the clean and cheap land and come to invest. However, "the people of Hualien are the ones who receive this land, this sky and this air. Corporations come and also say they want to develop the local area and provide job opportunities, but most people can see it but cannot get a taste of it. Instead, they must bear the consequences of the mountains being excavated and the environment being developed." He believes this is unfair to Hualien people.

Kawah believes that "corporations buy people's hearts with rebate payments, but Hualien people are kidnapped by this kind of welfare colonialism, increasingly relying on large-scale construction and development to obtain rebate payments, yet at the cost of sacrificing the environment and handing over their own right to development." She believes that only without large corporations will Hualien people have the chance to think clearly about what their own development path is.

Besides worrying about the decline in environmental quality brought by the chicken farm, they advocate that preserving their original way of life is Hualien's advantage. Moreover, Fenglin is the first town in Taiwan, China to receive international "Cittaslow" certification, and it absolutely must not sacrifice the environment as the cost of short-term development. Li Meiling is one of the main participants in this Fenglin Self-Rescue Association, and safeguarding Fenglin's "Cittaslow" brand and development principles is her greatest demand in participating in this environmental movement.

She believes that "Hualien originally had the chance to take a different development path, attracting travelers with its excellent natural environment and traditional culture. This requires environmentally friendly agricultural products and the development of traditional crafts and small industries to match," yet the county government instead brought in large, resource-intensive industries, endangering the original development model and importing the western approach into the east, which is in fact seeking far and neglecting what is near.

Li Meiling, applicant for "Cittaslow" certification: Only by going slower can you go farther

"At the time, we asked a Fenglin young person traveling in Europe to knock on the door of the Cittaslow certification organization in Italy. The other party discovered that an island country in Asia had actually noticed Cittaslow and was very surprised, so moved that they almost let Fenglin join on the spot." Li Meiling, who starting in 2012 spent three years applying for Italy's "Cittaslow" certification, is now the chairperson of the Beilin Third Village Community Development Association.

She explained, "Behind Cittaslow is actually a set of sustainable development plans for a town, including that the population cannot be too dense and that excessive pursuit of development is not allowed, the proportion of water used by people, the degree of activity of civil associations, and also such things as organic agriculture development, awareness of cultural preservation and environmental protection, all of which are evaluation indicators that Cittaslow values highly.

There cannot be too many chain stores or reliance on large-scale manufacturing. It pursues smallholder production, small shops and traditional craft stores. Cittaslow emphasizes that small industries must be helped to adapt to modern business models, and it does not oppose the use of online marketing, so as to preserve choice and not let the entire consumer market be monopolized by large corporations.

Li Meiling believes the Charoen Pokphand case stirred public opinion to a boil. "Ordinary people can care about odor pollution, public nuisance and water source areas, but community work cares more about how to make the town think about what Fenglin's needed direction of development really is," Li Meiling hopes to use this opportunity to clarify the imagination of development in the east. "The world develops too fast, and you will miss many beautiful and important things. Only by going slowly can you go longer and farther. Fenglin's problem is also a lesson Hualien must face," she said.