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Sacrificing the coast for green power? The Coastal Management Act is amended to make way for solar power, and marine scholars question: the fundamental law on national land should not be loosened arbitrarily

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Sacrificing the coast for green power? The Coastal Management Act is amended to make way for solar power, and marine scholars question: the fundamental law on national land should not be loosened arbitrarily

Starting in June this year, the Water Resources Agency of the Ministry of Economic Affairs, in accordance with the Coastal Management Act, announced the designation of "Grade 1 Coastal Protection Plans," covering an area spanning six counties and cities - Changhua, Yunlin, Chiayi, Tainan, Kaohsiung and Pingtung - and an estimated dozens of ground-mounted solar power development sites operated by solar companies have been included in the designation, and under the law they must separately apply to the Ministry of the Interior's "Coastal Management Review Committee" for permission before they can be developed.

Green energy operators were up in arms over this, and the Ministry of Economic Affairs, in a hurry to bail the operators out, quickly negotiated with the Ministry of the Interior to amend the law, and recently announced that projects under five hectares would all be exempt from review, while also clearing the way for "fishery-solar symbiosis" at the same time.

Yet Chiu Wen-yen, the person who gave birth to the Coastal Act, sternly opposed this move, holding that this amendment is tantamount to making the higher-level statute for national land conservation cripple itself to accommodate the thinking of a single ministry. He is even more worried that the coast is an ecologically very sensitive and fragile area, and that loosening development standards could cause many fragmented ecological niches to be impacted.

Content of the amendment: loosening the review threshold for solar power from one hectare to five hectares, simplifying the fishery-solar symbiosis procedure

Starting in June this year, the Water Resources Agency has successively announced in six counties and cities along the southwestern coast the designation of "Grade 1 Coastal Protection Zones" and land-side buffer zone ranges, affecting several ground-mounted solar project sites currently applying for development. Under Article 25 of the Coastal Management Act, no development of any kind may currently be carried out in Grade 1 coastal protection zones, and in coastal areas outside "Grade 1 Coastal Protection Zones," development and utilization activities must apply to the competent authority for permission, and under the law the competent authority, the Construction and Planning Agency of the Ministry of the Interior, should convene the "Coastal Management Review Committee" (abbreviated as the Coastal Review Committee) to review development projects.

Taiwan's main coastal protection zones are concentrated in the six counties and cities of Changhua, Yunlin, Chiayi, Tainan, Kaohsiung and Pingtung, showing the importance of the issue of national land conservation along the southwestern coast. (Image source / Coastal Area Management Information Network)

At the present stage, many ground-mounted solar development projects and fishery-solar symbiosis development projects are located within the buffer zones under the jurisdiction of the Coastal Act, and their progress has been severely hampered. For this reason, the Ministry of Economic Affairs urgently coordinated with the Ministry of the Interior to amend the law, and the Ministry of the Interior, on the grounds of avoiding duplicate review, loosened the review threshold from one hectare to five hectares and simplified the fishery-solar symbiosis review procedure, reducing the time and cost of development for operators.

The Construction and Planning Agency announced on November 19 the amendment of the Coastal Management Act, loosening the relevant provisions for solar photovoltaic facilities. This amendment has two main points. The first is to loosen the review threshold for photovoltaic facilities in coastal protection zones: as long as the installation site is located in a land-side buffer zone and does not involve a change in land use zoning, the review threshold will be loosened from the current one hectare to five hectares. That is, within existing land-side buffer zones, solar photovoltaic development projects under five hectares will no longer need to be submitted to the Coastal Review Committee for review.

The second point concerns fishery-solar symbiosis: for the fishery-solar symbiosis zones designated by the Ministry of Economic Affairs, the Energy Bureau of the Ministry of Economic Affairs may submit a "Feasibility Analysis" planning report for the whole group, which is sent to the Coastal Review Committee of the Ministry of the Interior for review, after which guiding principles and opinions are given. Then, the Ministry of Economic Affairs, in accordance with the guiding opinions of the Ministry of the Interior, issues each developer's electricity business establishment permit, requiring developers only to satisfy the above guiding opinions.

The Ministry of the Interior said that in the future, after the Ministry of Economic Affairs amends the Electricity Business Registration Rules, the content reviewed by the Ministry of the Interior will be incorporated into the electricity business review, and fishery-solar symbiosis will only need to be submitted for electricity business establishment permit review, so the Ministry of the Interior will not need to conduct duplicate review.

Chiu Wen-yen: The Coastal Act is a higher-level law, and loosening it arbitrarily could cause important habitats to be neglected

Chiu Wen-yen, who once served as a legislator and deputy director-general of the Environmental Protection Administration, promoted the Wetland Conservation Act and the Coastal Management Act during his tenure. Looking back at the legislation of the Coastal Management Act, which was based on the functions of conservation, disaster prevention and sustainable development, he believes that the Ministry of the Interior actively amending the law and loosening the provisions for solar power development, although it reduces cumbersome administrative procedures, ignores the original intent of the legislation.

"From the perspective of ecological and environmental protection, loosening the provisions must be done very prudently. I am rather worried that some ecological environments are very small patches of land, and in this process of loosening, some sensitive areas and habitats may be neglected." Chiu Wen-yen commented, "The Ministry of the Interior should not open a back door first and then talk about guarding the gate. In fact, only the Coastal Review Committee or coastal experts and scholars, through sufficient dialogue, can make a complete assessment." Chiu stressed that he is not clear about the process of the amendment, but he holds a skeptical attitude toward this decision.

As for the fishery-solar symbiosis zones, where the Ministry of Economic Affairs is to submit the feasibility analysis planning report and individual cases are to be reviewed by the Ministry of Economic Affairs itself, Chiu Wen-yen expressed strong "opposition." He maintains that the Coastal Management Act is a higher-level law, and the Ministry of the Interior should do higher-level planning rather than become passive.

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