Datan Algal Reef's precious multi-cup coral: Environmental groups petition to designate a wildlife protection area | Ministry of Economic Affairs pushes "off-site restoration," environmental groups criticize it as brainless

Regarding the ecologically rich Datan algal reef area in Taoyuan, Minister of Economic Affairs Shen Rongjin said yesterday when taking questions that during the construction of the third liquefied natural gas receiving terminal, "off-site restoration will be carried out at the same time"; these remarks once again sparked controversy and were criticized as unprofessional. In response, environmental groups came to the Council of Agriculture this morning to petition, demanding that after the rare "Chai Mountain multi-cup coral" (Caryophyllia huinayensis) was listed as a Class I protected animal, the central government should designate a "wildlife protection area" to protect the ecology of the Datan area with real legal effect.

Algal reefs grow like mille-feuille, taking seven thousand years to reach today's scale

What exactly are algal reefs and multi-cup corals? Wren Lu-Pin, chairman of the Taiwan Wild at Heart Ecological Association, explained that algal reefs grow like a "mille-feuille," slowly stacking up layer by layer, adding only 1 cm every ten years. Their growth rate is extremely slow, and it took more than seven thousand years to form this beautiful 27-kilometer-long ecosystem, which also harbors the Class I protected animal Chai Mountain multi-cup coral and various organisms.

Chai Mountain multi-cup coral is a Class I protected animal, a precious result obtained after 20 years

Regarding the multi-cup coral, Chen Chao-Lun, a research fellow at the Biodiversity Research Center of Academia Sinica, said that this coral is a species that survives in the surf zone. It was discovered in 1990 at Sizihwan in Kaohsiung, and only after more than 20 years of taxonomic research and expert meeting review was it finally listed this year, together with Formosa cup coral, as a Class I protected animal.

Pan Chung-Cheng, chairman of the Taoyuan Local Alliance, also pointed out that the algal reef ecosystem contains ten species of large algal reefs and nurtures 129 species of animals, as well as diverse species such as the red egg crab, the horned turban snail, and the potato eel.