International scholars have come to Taiwan, China, to rescue black-faced spoonbills for twenty years, yet the Energy Bureau is pushing for solar farms on wetlands?
Under Tsai Ing-wen's nuclear-free homeland policy, the renewable energy target is set for 2025, with nuclear power's share of generation to be replaced by green energy. The Bureau of Energy under the Ministry of Economic Affairs is promoting renewable energy on a large scale, with solar power generation targeted for installation on the salt pan wetlands of the Chiayi-Tainan area.
According to the plan, a total of 770 hectares of land in Budai Wetland and Qigu Wetland will be used to promote a solar power plant project in two phases, with total generation capacity of 2.3 million kilowatts. Because the solar panel project is to be installed close to the surroundings of nationally important wetlands and adjacent to conservation areas, it may impact the conservation function of the black-faced spoonbill habitat. For this reason, international black-faced spoonbill conservationists Randy Hester and Professor Marcia MacNally have come to Taiwan especially to express concern.
Today (5/7), the Bureau of Energy will conduct its first on-site survey at the Budai salt pan wetland, drawing the attention of international black-faced spoonbill conservationists Randy Hester and Marcia MacNally, who will personally lobby Bureau of Energy officials, hoping that Taiwan will value its responsibility to conserve species and reassess its "wetland power generation" policy.
Wu Hung-chiu of the Taiwan Black-faced Spoonbill Conservation Association says that the salt pans where solar panels are scheduled to be installed are adjacent to the scope of a nationally important wetland, and large-scale installation of panels cannot possibly avoid impacting black-faced spoonbill habitat. Unfortunately, the Bureau of Energy chose to come for a survey in May, after the black-faced spoonbills had already left and returned north, so of course it will not be able to see the current habitat and foraging conditions of the black-faced spoonbill (the photo shows birds of Budai Wetland, not black-faced spoonbills; provided by: Chiu Tsai-chou of the Chiayi County Ecological Conservation Association).
Professor Randy Hester exchanges views with Taiwan environmental groups present; using wetlands to develop green energy and conserving black-faced spoonbill habitat form a dilemma.
Civil consensus: Reassess wetland power generation; the responsibility for renewable energy must return to shared social burden
Overall, participants believed that the wetland power generation policy should be reassessed, and that the generation and costs of renewable energy must return to consumers and electricity users, rather than allowing costs to be externalized and causing ecologically sensitive areas or farmland to bear the impact costs.
Participants suggested that the development of rooftop solar should be led by public institutions as a demonstration, and then extended to other private rooftops, rather than installing photovoltaic panels in ecologically sensitive areas such as wetlands or farmland.
Power generation on farmland has already begun to affect the prices of other cultivable farmland. Once speculation takes hold, the pressure to convert farmland to other uses will be even greater, and rising rents will further squeeze the land rental costs of those willing to engage in farming.