Landfill pollution in Miaoli, wind turbines resisted in Yunlin by over a thousand residents encroaching on farming villages: an unsettled New Year

Today is the last day of the Lunar New Year holiday, and everyone is preparing to settle down and return to work amid the atmosphere of family reunion. Yet many people have spent a restless Spring Festival defending their homes! Villagers of Longsheng Village in Zaoqiao Township, Miaoli, have been taking shifts on watch even on Chinese New Year's Eve to block industrial waste from entering their home and polluting their water source. Today (2/16) they further gathered elected representatives, village chiefs, and friends from all over Taiwan to jointly issue a statement firmly opposing the landfill.

Also speaking out in protest for their hometown are the residents of Taixi and Sihu in Yunlin. Nearly a thousand residents braved the cold wind on the first day of the Lunar New Year to protest the government and conglomerates stripping away their right to survive.

When one place is in trouble, help comes from all sides: opposing Kunyu is by no means a "minority"

Today the Kunyu Self-Rescue Association, together with elected representatives at all levels in Miaoli County, village chiefs and residents of Zaoqiao and Houlong, and members of self-rescue associations from all over Taiwan concerned about land justice, held a joint press conference with more than a hundred people, demanding that the Miaoli County Government withdraw Kunyu Technology's trial operation plan.

The Kunyu industrial waste landfill case, which had been blocked and had its permit revoked by the previous two county magistrates, had its trial operation plan swiftly approved late last year by the incumbent magistrate Hsu Yao-chang. Since January 5 of this year, villagers of Longsheng Village in Zaoqiao Township have been camping and cooking outside the site for 43 days to block 8,223 metric tons of waste from being buried there, and could not even go home for the Lunar New Year's Eve reunion dinner.

Because Hsu Yao-chang once declared, stressing that "the operator (referring to Kunyu) applied through legal procedures, yet we deliberately give up eating for fear of choking for the sake of a minority of environmentalists who oppose for the sake of opposing; as an elected chief, I will not compromise," the Self-Rescue Association deliberately chose the last day of the Lunar New Year holiday to hold a joint press conference, proving that those who oppose the Kunyu case are not a "minority," and that it is the majority of residents who are willing to stand up for their beautiful mountains, waters, and home. They ask Hsu Yao-chang to seriously listen to the public will.

Even the township chief was unaware of the review process: elected representatives urge the county government to revoke the landfill as soon as possible

Zaoqiao Township, Zao