Focus on Sugihara Bay, not just for the sake of a bay

People of Taitung, you deserve more sustainable development!
— Not only against the Beautiful Bay model, but also for the coastal lifeline we all share.

Taitung and the entire East Coast can in fact simultaneously host more diverse niche leisure investments, leading to a more vibrant tourism industry while still preserving safe and shared coastal resources. For development to last, the tourism industry and environmental resources have always been interdependent, like lips and teeth. Yet maintaining this relationship requires a meticulous understanding of environmental characteristics, careful observation of whether development actions endanger the very foundation resources these developments rely on, and a willingness to humbly step back, weigh alternatives, and adopt more thorough approaches.

If you refuse assessment, how could you be willing to hand over our vast assets to him for investment management with peace of mind?

Highly exclusive, high-risk investment management has no reason to rely on a single phrase: ‘the principle of trust.’ Even if everyone is willing to be good people doing good deeds, only professional, division-of-labor objective assessment fed back into monitorable and enforceable supervision and control can make trust truly work.

The Beautiful Bay Resort’s large-scale development of 6 hectares and 185 rooms, which from the earliest 0.9 hectares began evading environmental impact assessment all the way through its smuggling through, expanding the area, raising the building coverage ratio, and increasing the height of the main building body, while the High Court ruled the original construction permit invalid and halted development, managed to obtain a construction permit issued by the county government on the strength of a single principle of trust, setting a bad precedent of ‘what I say goes,’ tailoring rules to individuals and judging by subjective conviction, making people feel as if they were in an era of imperial power without the rule of law.

A patch of blue wall in the Taitung Cultural and Creative Zone reminds us that an environment where mountains and sea connect is both the source of life and the source of development.

I would rather everyone remember the name ‘Shanyuan Bay’; she shines without needing to be named ‘beautiful.’

Not only against the Beautiful Bay model, but also for the coastal lifeline we all share. Oversight of all large-scale development of coastal and environmental resources will continue. We need you to care, for yourself and for the children who have no voice or decision-making power yet, and to share your thoughts with those around you.