Under the Environmental Impact Assessment Law, anyone proposing a development project that may have an influence on the natural, social, economic, or cultural environment of Taiwan must submit an environmental impact assessment report to designated government agencies. Such projects range from the construction of factories and other industrial projects to the expansion of airports and the development of golf courses. The law has become a bone of contention between industrial interests and residents, and there are also doubts about its enforceability.
According to Taiwan's Environmental Protection Administration (EPA), roughly 80 percent of the cases it processed in 1995 satisfied the environmental impact assessment standard. Ni Shih-piao (倪世標), director-general of the EPA's Bureau of Comprehensive Planning, takes a positive view of the EIAL. “Once it was passed,” he says, “all development projects submitted by private corporations, or even by government bodies, had to pass the environmental impact assessment standard. No exceptions.” He contrasts that with what happened in the past, when other interested government agencies would insist on giving the go-ahead to certain projects, regardless of the effect on the environment.
But a law is only as good as its enforcement, and in that area the EPA is perceived as weak. One reason is that nobody wants to take responsibility for saying no to developers; another is that government agencies have yet to devise a coordinated approach. The EIAL provides that once a development project has been approved, the responsibility for doing follow-up environmental assessments shifts to various government bodies. For example, the Industrial Development Bureau is responsible for industrial zones, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications for transportation projects, and the Ministry of Education for golf course projects. This approach causes problems “The EPA enacts the law and does the evaluation,” one Ministry of the Interior official complains. “Afterwards, the EPA requests other government agencies to do the follow-up work. We don't have the manpower and the professionals for that.”
Not surprisingly, developers and industrialists tend to take a dim view of the EIAL. Many complain that shortage of labor and a number of other complicated laws are already threatening their investments in Taiwan, and that the EIAL usually delays the process of evaluating projects. Shih Yen-shiang (施顏祥), formerly director-general of the Medium and Small Enterprise Administration, Ministry of Economic Affairs, expresses an opinion that is shared by many corporations. “Timing is very important when making this kind of investment,” he says. “If a project is delayed, its return rate will be low.”
In many cases, however, a major reason for delay is that corporations do not pay sufficient attention to environmental issues at the planning stage. When the government requires them to submit detailed environmental reports, they usually have to spend another six months to a year collecting the necessary information. Ni Shih-piao points out that on average it takes the EPA only forty days to do the review, once it has the paperwork from the developer. And Chen Cheng-tung (陳鎮東), a member of the EPA's review committee and also a professor at the Institute of Marine Geology, National Sun Yat-sen University, notes that many corporations either do the environmental report in a perfunctory manner, or purposely omit controversial parts altogether.
This is confirmed by the experience of one engineer who has been closely involved with a number of projects and who admits that he sometimes comes under pressure. “Certain projects are very sensitive, because they have a huge impact on the environment,” he says. “But our clients ask us not to emphasize those aspects in our report, or they want us to say the environmental impact is minor.”
Michael Tseng(曾瀧永), a member of Greenpeace, says the Tainan Science and Technology Industrial Park provides an example of the difficulties facing law enforcement agencies. According to him, an official in the Industrial Development Bureau bluntly told an EPA counterpart that “the environmental impact assessment report is just for reference, and we don't have to worry about it.”
With the government, industry, and local conservation groups all involved, it is hardly surprising that there have been some serious confrontations. A good example of how various interests can polarize is the furor over the Coastal South Industrial Zone, the biggest industrial development project submitted to the EPA since passage of the EIAL. The zone is set to be located in Chiku, in western Tainan county, a region that consists mostly of coastal dunes, subtidal deltas, reefs, and wetlands. The project includes a steel plant, naphtha cracking plant, and harbor, and will cost in the region of NT$400 billion [US$14.8 billion]. It is expected to influence the lives of nearly a million people.
Local residents and conservation groups worry that the project could destroy the surrounding natural environment. Water supply is inevitably going to present a problem, given the construction of so many plants, and will seriously affect nearby fishing and aquaculture industries. Moreover, the wintering site of the endangered black-faced spoonbill is just five kilometers south of the zone's intended location.
When the first environmental impact assessment meeting for the coastal industrial zone was held in November last year, more than a hundred policemen had to be assigned to protect the EPA's headquarters from protesters. There were two warring factions. On one side, demonstrators wearing white hats and holding yellow flags urged that construction of the zone should go ahead as planned outside Chiku. Ranged against them were fishermen and oyster farmers, who opposed the project because it would threaten their livelihoods. Both groups of protesters came from Chiku, their hometown.
The environmentalists have some influential supporters. Hsu Kuo-shih (徐國士), director of the Institute of Natural Resources Management of National Dong Hwa University, criticizes the Industrial Development Bureau for giving the go-ahead to such a large-scale industrial zone in this ecologically sensitive area. “It is going to cause a lot of waste, and also damage Taiwan's natural resources,” he says. Yang Chung-hsin (楊重信), deputy director of the Institute of Economics, Academia Sinica, also a member of the EPA's review committee, has a similar view. “This is not an isolated project,” he says “A thorough evaluation is needed.” Chen Rong-tso (陳榮作), secretary-general of the Wetland Conservation Union, points out that several other developments are either planned or already under way in southern Taiwan, and that all of them will aggravate an already severe shortage of water.
Awkward questions have also been posed concerning the coastal industrial zone's relationship to stated government policy. Last April, the Council for Economic Planning and Development announced that Taiwan should promote environmentally-friendly industries which consume only moderate amounts of water and energy. Lin Sheng-chung (林聖崇), a director of Greenpeace, believes that the naphtha cracking and steel plants projected for the coastal zone will generate high pollution and use a lot of energy. “Aren't they contrary to the government's new policy?” he asks.
Yet another side of the issue is reflected in the slogans being shouted by some Chiku inhabitants last November: “Chiku people want to survive. If you won't let us survive, we won't let the black-faced spoonbill live either!” In Taiwan, environment issues have become deeply involved with complex political and economic conflicts. It may be a long time before people can make peace in the war between environmental protection and economic development
Adapted with permission from “Can the Environmental Impact Assessment Law Resist the Temptations of Economic Development?” Common Wealth (December 1995).