True Men and Edamame Farmers All Wept - A Record of the Gaoping Great Lake Environmental Impact Assessment
Text / Li Ken-cheng (Chief Executive Officer, Citizens of the Earth Foundation)
The Gaoping Grand Lake environmental impact assessment special task force reached a conclusion, but my colleague Jun-lang cried. For the colleagues and volunteers at Citizens of the Earth, this is truly unimaginable.
Director Yang Jun-lang of the Forest and Mountain Conservation Department is a senior full-time staff member. Although his name means "handsome and cheerful," he is usually a man of few words, rarely expressing his emotions directly, and his simple lifestyle makes us feel as if he is engaged in ascetic practice. What impressed me most is that sometimes for lunch he just cooks brown rice on a gas stove, or brings a raw carrot, a banana, and an apple; colleagues who have gone mountain climbing with him say that even when climbing high mountains, he only eats some brown rice, and doesn't even touch the pork floss he brought along. To someone like me who loves to eat, this is truly amazing.
Colleagues and volunteers jokingly call him "Taiwan's true man."
Why did a true man of Taiwan cry? I had no time to ask him, because before he could even heal his wounds, the next day he was already preparing for the environmental impact assessment case of "National Highway No. 7." Jun-lang's scope covers "mountains, forests, water, and land" - forests, water resources, and land are all his issues, and friends familiar with these issues have seen his dedication over the past few years.
The Gaoping Grand Lake was an issue I began working on in 2004, when I was at the "Kaohsiung City Teachers' Association Ecological Education Center," in cooperation with allied groups. Thanks to the strength of community opposition, the Legislative Yuan cut its budget year after year; in 2007 Citizens of the Earth was founded, and the following year Jun-lang came on board, and this work began to shift into Jun-lang's hands. Over the years, Jun-lang went deep into various communities and organizations to build networks. We often cooperated with groups such as Meinong Ai Xiang, holding evening information sessions in communities, and of course attending official meetings to express opinions and understand government information.
The most important part of Citizens of the Earth's work is fully grasping government information, plus rich field experience. There is truly a great deal to learn when dealing with water resource issues, but Jun-lang quickly got up to speed. To be honest, this is a blessing for Citizens of the Earth, a blessing for society, and even more so a benefit for me. Because of Jun-lang, I have reduced the pressure on this part of the issues.
We believe in the power of the people's awakening
After the meeting ended, the media wanted to interview Jun-lang. Then I heard media friends say that Jun-lang had cried, and so I had to step in and do the interview in his place.
I think there is no need to ask Yang Jun-lang why he cried; nor is there any need to ask why Tsai Chung-yueh also cried after the brutal environmental impact assessment at Beautiful Bay; even I, an old hand like myself, could not bear the anger and slammed the table and shed tears.
In Taiwan there are many people who give their true hearts to protecting the environment, to social justice, and to intergenerational justice. These people are flesh and blood; because they give, because they feel deeply, because they understand and therefore care, because the truth is so unbearable, they become cautiously angry and sorrowful. I am not worried that my partners will be crushed by these brutal events; instead, I deeply believe that such shocks will again and again deepen our affection for the land and our determination to act.
However, I am still somewhat worried about the physical and mental burden on my colleagues, because there are simply too many fires to put out.
As for the Gaoping Grand Lake, we will continue to participate in and monitor the environmental impact assessment, but we will not regard the environmental impact assessment as the only and final battlefield. We believe that the power generated by the people's awakening is more effective than the government's approved official documents.
(This article is reposted from the Citizens of the Earth Foundation website, originally titled "The Power of Awakening (Notes on the Gaoping Grand Lake Environmental Impact Assessment)")
On good farmland, two cases laid out side by side.
Please have the Executive Yuan step forward to coordinate the Gaoping Grand Lake development project