thats a good picture!.
But no its not ignorance, most of the locals AND the goverment shit all over the island and have done for the past 60+ years… its taiwan, look around you!.
Sure there are a handful of people that try to and do take care of the surroundings, but we are talking a tiny handful.
You just need to open your eyes a little more, i think the ignorance claim you make is vastly misplaced.
[quote=“smellybumlove”]thats a good picture!.
But no its not ignorance, most of the locals AND the goverment shit all over the island and have done for the past 60+ years… its taiwan, look around you!.[/quote]
I am very familiar with the problems Taiwan faces. But one cannot compare a 100 person community being a bit scruffy and maybe tossing garbage in the local river with a cement factory, a coal plant, a reservoir, a massive hotel, or a nuclear power plant and its effects on the same environment. Look at the controversy over Sansaitai. Despite all the dirty locals living there for generations the marine environment is in good shape and corals are abundant. Toss in some big construction of a hotel and complex over the next couple years and that will change, and not for the better.
Look at Huben. Despite being a dirty township it is still a prime habitat for the Fairy Pita, and the resting ground for millions of purple butterflies. The reservoir being built now is fucking all that up. Same with the parking lots and hotels being put up in maolin. They are destroying butterfly valleys that the locals managed not to (despite their dirty ways) for millennia.
I’m well aware that lots of Taiwan is still a dump and treated badly by many locals. That is no reason though to laugh at the efforts of the good people of Dulan, or anywhere else, to make a difference in their community.
Fact is there is widespread regard and concern for the environment now. Hundreds of environmental and community groups exist and they do all manner of projects: from replanting areas to attract birds and butterflies and restore balance, to cleaning up dumps, to preventing polluting industries from moving into their neighborhood.
[quote=“Mucha Man”]
I am very familiar with the problems Taiwan faces. But one cannot compare a 100 person community being a bit scruffy and maybe tossing garbage in the local river with a cement factory, a coal plant, a reservoir, a massive hotel, or a nuclear power plant and its effects on the same environment. Look at the controversy over Sansaitai. Despite all the dirty locals living there for generations the marine environment is in good shape and corals are abundant. Toss in some big construction of a hotel and complex over the next couple years and that will change, and not for the better.
Look at Huben. Despite being a dirty township it is still a prime habitat for the Fairy Pita, and the resting ground for millions of purple butterflies. The reservoir being built now is fucking all that up. Same with the parking lots and hotels being put up in maolin. They are destroying butterfly valleys that the locals managed not to (despite their dirty ways) for millennia.
I’m well aware that lots of Taiwan is still a dump and treated badly by many locals. That is no reason though to laugh at the efforts of the good people of Dulan, or anywhere else, to make a difference in their community.
Fact is there is widespread regard and concern for the environment now. Hundreds of environmental and community groups exist and they do all manner of projects: from replanting areas to attract birds and butterflies and restore balance, to cleaning up dumps, to preventing polluting industries from moving into their neighborhood.[/quote]
[quote=“Franck de Taiwan”][quote=“Muzha Man”]
Fact is there is widespread regard and concern for the environment now. Hundreds of environmental and community groups exist and they do all manner of projects: from replanting areas to attract birds and butterflies and restore balance, to cleaning up dumps, to preventing polluting industries from moving into their neighborhood.[/quote]
[/quote]
Man, you’ve hit the nail on the head with that - the times they are a-changing - even if it has been a bit later in Taiwan than Bob might have imagined. Conservation consciousness is taking hold in the Taiwan middle class and i believe the will is there to start protecting some of these incredibly beautiful places that Taiwan still has left. It still needs to be activated, but my impression from talking to the many tourists that i meet here is that they’ve come to Taidong especially because it hasn’t been developed to death and they want it to stay that way. I have considered that the overwhelming support for the protest that i hear from our big city friends might be just Taiwanese politeness, but I sense it’s more than that. The mood for change is there.
Another point is that the aborigines, and the majority of the ‘locals’ in these little east coast places are aborigines, have a different take on the environment to the old-style Taiwanese way.
Well i think its a lost cause, the place was floating down shit creek about 5 years ago, only one-way to go now.
I respect that you are trying to stop something from destroying what little there is left, fact is china is the boss now, you can protest, kick and scream as much as you want, fact remains that the men in the government will take the red envelopes and bugger off overseas to a place that’s not wasted away.
My whole Taiwan family is split in 2, half are idiotic and remain here (they really are a stereotype of Taiwan) and the other half left to sabah and don’t look back.
[quote=“smellybumlove”]Well I think its a lost cause, the place was floating down shit creek about 5 years ago, only one-way to go now.
I respect that you are trying to stop something from destroying what little there is left, fact is china is the boss now, you can protest, kick and scream as much as you want, fact remains that the men in the government will take the red envelopes and bugger off overseas to a place that’s not wasted away.
My whole Taiwan family is split in 2, half are idiotic and remain here (they really are a stereotype of Taiwan) and the other half left to sabah and don’t look back.[/quote]
With a name like smellybumlove, I’m not going to question for one minute what you know about being up shit creek, but for some of us the idea of turn her over pops into mind. That’s the source of life. Change the paradigm. Think differently and things might change. Just accepting what you think to be inevitable isn’t by itself an argument worth entertaining, surely?
[quote=“dulan drift”][quote=“Franck de Taiwan”][quote=“Muzha Man”]
Fact is there is widespread regard and concern for the environment now. Hundreds of environmental and community groups exist and they do all manner of projects: from replanting areas to attract birds and butterflies and restore balance, to cleaning up dumps, to preventing polluting industries from moving into their neighborhood.[/quote]
[/quote]
Man, you’ve hit the nail on the head with that - the times they are a-changing - even if it has been a bit later in Taiwan than Bob might have imagined. Conservation consciousness is taking hold in the Taiwan middle class and I believe the will is there to start protecting some of these incredibly beautiful places that Taiwan still has left. It still needs to be activated, but my impression from talking to the many tourists that i meet here is that they’ve come to Taidong especially because it hasn’t been developed to death and they want it to stay that way. I have considered that the overwhelming support for the protest that I hear from our big city friends might be just Taiwanese politeness, but I sense it’s more than that. The mood for change is there.
Another point is that the aborigines, and the majority of the ‘locals’ in these little east coast places are aborigines, have a different take on the environment to the old-style Taiwanese way.[/quote]
The last few years have been interesting and I think three big events have helped propell environmental thinking. One, the recession really got people thinking about the land and the fact that while a simple farming life didn’t make you rich, it was stable and fulfilling in many other ways. Without the big promises of making it rich people are looking for long term stability.
Two, Morakot drove home just how fragile the land is and how much our abuses of it are starting to come back and haunt us.
Three, social media allowing for protests and ideas to carry around the island. The farmers who successfully stopped land expropriation in Miaoli attributed their success to the public pressure they were able to generate with social media. Since the newspapers here never do their job of reporting government and business abuses we had to wait until people could inform each other on an islandwide scale.
I would say that the push to develop tourism under the DPP also helped in that so many areas were cleaned up, so many people started opening nice B&B which allowed ordinary people to get out and explore and see just how beautiful their island is.
Earlier this year the EPA was made a ministry for the first time which is another sign of the changing times. The problem with corruption though is going to remain at county levels because of the poor control the central gov has. I mean look at the land subsistence issue in Yunlin. Overpumping of ground water is threatening to sink the high speed rail. If Smelly was right that could not be happening as powerful business interests would override any local practices and concerns. But that’s not how it happens in Taiwan. Local corruption wins out over central gov concerns almost every time. Even when backed by billions in investment. Conversely, a well organized and determined group with a positive agenda can also be successful.
You guys can win this maybe only by delaying the final construction and opening for so long that the building will be unusable.
[quote=“Mucha Man”][quote=“dulan drift”][quote=“Franck de Taiwan”][quote=“Muzha Man”]
Fact is there is widespread regard and concern for the environment now. Hundreds of environmental and community groups exist and they do all manner of projects: from replanting areas to attract birds and butterflies and restore balance, to cleaning up dumps, to preventing polluting industries from moving into their neighborhood.[/quote]
[/quote]
… the recession really got people thinking about the land and the fact that while a simple farming life didn’t make you rich, it was stable and fulfilling in many other ways. Without the big promises of making it rich people are looking for long term stability.
You guys can win this maybe only by delaying the final construction and opening for so long that the building will be unusable.[/quote][/quote]
Last time i was in Australia, this guy told me the secret to making a small fortune: ‘First, go out and make a large fortune - then buy a farm’. But there is satisfaction in living on the land and that’s a nice box to tick at some stage before you die.
It doesn’t necessarily depend on delaying the opening, though that would be nice. There are things that could be done to discourage people from actually using it - i mean, you spend money on a hol, you want to have a nice time - word would soon spread on the tour bus grape vine. In the end, it’s all about money, and the money only comes if the people keep coming.
One thing that i am curious, even ignorant about, is where does all the tax money go? Although the tax rate is pretty low in Taiwan, there is tremendous population density, so it must be clocking up at a pretty decent clip. But it doesn’t seem to be commensurate with the amount of tax payer funded public facilities. Instead, we get BOT projects. That seems like a blatant double dip - and then where does the money raised from that go as well?
One thing here that people have mentioned are the aboriginal people. I know quite a few aboriginals around the Taitung area and I believe in regard to this project, there are two camps:
1): The aboriginals who think the hotel should be torn down/turned into a museum/bombed.
2): The aboriginals who think the hotel should remain because it will give them income and a job.
I personally believe that the the aboriginals who think they will get a job out of this are totally misguided. What will happen is a few token aboriginals will get work, while the rest of the staff will be slickers from Taipei who have silly master’s degrees in hotel management and swimming pool maintenance.
This whole thing is a sham and a disgrace.
Now we also have highway 26 to worry about - the highway that will destroy Taiwan’s last remaining untouched frontier and make the island’s road system a complete circle. But hey, that’s another story…
[quote]2): The aboriginals who think the hotel should remain because it will give them income and a job.
[/quote]
Then there are the aboriginals that are land owners who associate the hotel with improved land prices – not that land prices weren’t going up anyway.
I wonder if that swimming pool degree includes a section on how to deal with a typhoon tidal surge sweeping through your swimming pool complex coz that will definitely occur at some stage. No doubt the solution will be to build a huge concrete storm water break on the beach. On the job front, there is also the negative impact that the hotel will have on the many aborigines (and other locals) that run their nice little guest houses.
There is also a third group of aborigines that would probably prefer the the environment to be conserved, but are not interested in getting involved in any confrontational protest action. I asked a friend how to say ‘Fuck off’ in Amis language. She said, “we don’t say that”. “Ok, how about ‘Go away.’” “We don’t say that either.” “But what if someone is really annoying you and you want them to go away. What do you say?” “We don’t say anything. We go away.”
[quote=“dulan drift”]
I wonder if that swimming pool degree includes a section on how to deal with a typhoon tidal surge sweeping through your swimming pool complex because that will definitely occur at some stage. No doubt the solution will be to build a huge concrete storm water break on the beach. On the job front, there is also the negative impact that the hotel will have on the many aborigines (and other locals) that run their nice little guest houses.
There is also a third group of aborigines that would probably prefer the the environment to be conserved, but are not interested in getting involved in any confrontational protest action. I asked a friend how to say ‘Fuck off’ in Amis language. She said, “we don’t say that”. “Ok, how about ‘Go away.’” “We don’t say that either.” “But what if someone is really annoying you and you want them to go away. What do you say?” “We don’t say anything. We go away.”[/quote]
Are there any plans of the hotel open to the public? Did you have a look at them?
There’s a hotel in Kenting (Chateau) that also has a pool but it survived all major storms as far as I could tell. There’s no huge barrier and the hotel design doesn’t make the sea shore look so terrible. I think it actually improves it cause they put some plants on a quite unstable sea shore.
Looking after what happened to those hotels in Zhiben along the river. Typhoon danger isn’t just on the shore:
youtube.com/watch?v=0QPO3fXxpa0
And I’m sure those Amis got a lot of terrible words 
Actually energim, the Chateau caused terrible erosion on the beach at Kenting. A few years back the beach, which used to gently slope down into the sea just suddenly dropped off about 3m and kids couldn’t even swim anymore. It took years to get the beach back.
I also wouldn’t be holding up Kenting as an example of how to do things. The park has so little control over the area that jet skis, legally banned, are still everywhere. When I met with park officials a few years back they said that when inspectors come the gangsters are tipped off, take the jet skis away, and return the next day. This year, during the latest shuffle of administrators for national parks, no one was found willing to take over Kenting. Imagine that? Lovely tropical paradise and no one wants to live there and run it? I was told that the one of the heads of another national park had to be strongarmed into the position.
In any case the west coast doesn’t get the same typhoon surges as Taitung.
Possible, but at least the (hotel owned) beach was clean. I went a bit more east the next day to the public beach which was, sadly, full of bottles and plastic trash.
Put it short: Taiwanese need to be educated not to through away their trash everywhere. The hotel would actually make me enjoy the Taidong beach more cause I don’t have to deal with the trash, but that’s just my thoughts.
I won’t judge it before actually seeing the plans. I took a few pics at Sansiantai. Was actually hard not to have any trash on it, you can even see it here (notice the plastic bottles in the center of the photo):
Kending: The beach is generally unstable. There’s two versions of the story. Some say the hotel “takes care of the beach” others that it makes the situation worse. As far as I read the beach was literally gone after last big Typhoon. Don’t know whats the situation now…
So anyone can get those hotel plans or are people just generally against any sea side hotels? I prefer a more rational approach instead of talking about cute aboriginal sea side campers. I.e. Trowing away trash should be punished by prisons here (its a goddamn protected zone). Hotels must abide legislative rules, etc.
[quote=“engerim”]Possible, but at least the (hotel owned) beach was clean. I went a bit more east the next day to the public beach which was, sadly, full of bottles and plastic trash.
Put it short: Taiwanese need to be educated not to through away their trash everywhere. The hotel would actually make me enjoy the Taidong beach more cause I don’t have to deal with the trash, but that’s just my thoughts. 
Kending: The beach is generally unstable. There’s two versions of the story. Some say the hotel “takes care of the beach” others that it makes the situation worse. As far as I read the beach was literally gone after last big Typhoon. Don’t know whats the situation now…
So anyone can get those hotel plans or are people just generally against any sea side hotels? I prefer a more rational approach instead of talking about cute aboriginal sea side campers. I.e. Trowing away trash should be punished by prisons here (its a goddamn protected zone). Hotels must abide legislative rules, etc.[/quote]
The public beach at Kenting is supposed to be maintained by the Chateau so if it is dirty it is because the hotel is not fulfilling its obligations. In fact all the Chateau is doing is make sure it is keeping the beach in front of the hotel clean for its customers. It’s bullshit like this that makes people who understand how things are done in Taiwan not trust that a hotel in Dulan is going to preserve the environment no matter what the promises.
As for trash, yes, it is an issue, but when the park can’t enforce laws against jet skis why would you expect they are going to get hotels to act responsibly? In any case as I wrote earlier, trash is not the real issue. It can be picked up and in a lot of cases it is not people dumping but stuff getting washed up. Destruction of the environment by hotels and large construction projects is a far more serious threat.
And yes, I am opposed to most seaside hotels, because they do nothing but give money to people living away from the community. After all my years here I hold the business community is absolute contempt and will not give them the benefit of the doubt on any construction.
Well what can we expect if people are generally dirty here… why should businesses be any different.
Least thing that I can make sure is that the confined space that I paid for is clean (like inside the Chateau).
Unless people stop polluting (no matter how) I don’t see a end to this.
For everything else, there’s “vacation abroad” Courage for anyone who is fighting for a clean Taiwan though!
Well what can we expect if people are generally dirty here… why should businesses be any different.
Least thing that I can make sure is that the confined space that I paid for is clean (like inside the Chateau).
Unless people stop polluting (no matter how) I don’t see a end to this.
For everything else, there’s “vacation abroad” Courage for anyone who is fighting for a clean Taiwan though![/quote]
The people are not generally dirty here. Taiwan has made massive improvements in the past 15 years and the average citizen is no more likely to litter than anywhere else. After just returning from two months in Alaska I can assure you that if people littered as they do there this place would be awash in trash. You can’t go down any back road in that state near a major settlement without seeing piles of trash, old cars, furniture, mattresses, and so on. In remote areas once a machine is brought in it never leaves until the elements reduceit to dust. In Nome the actually advertise the local machinery graveyard as a tourist attraction. 
110% agree that most people don’t litter anymore and there are many beach cleanups now. Also, the big problem 20 years ago was that they didn’t have trash collection especially in rural areas so people had to find places to dump. It is so much better now.
150% agree about not trusting the business community.
Of course things improve(ed) (i.e. that Taiwan got an EPA, noise and pollution laws was almost a wonder to me) but there’s still too much junk out there.
Not everything is from Taiwan(ese) but the east coast attracts a lot of stuff that flows up from other countries.
I just think that hotels (with a nice adequate swimming pool and maintained beach) as the Chateau are much nicer for having a holiday than having to look out for trash all time. I spent numerous times in camping sites while hiking and there’s always trash.
In that context I don’t want to refuse a hotel in Taidong blindly without knowing what they actually want to do.
About trusting the business community, well yeah that should be well defined by laws and permits, no? Do we trust the local governments?
Whats the actual plan of that hotel? Where are they now? Any statement, hearing?
Unfortunately its never clear in Taiwan and “the press” is a bunch of amateurs on top…
Before the hotel there was a nice little beach community with a campground, fantastic Italian restaurant, and free beach. The hotel company came in, kicked everyone else, even though it is a public beach, threw all the old materials into the sea and began construction. They divided their hotel up into small sections because small tourism projects don’t need to pass environmental assessments. However it is clearly one unit, the sum of its parts. The local community won an injunction to have construction stopped. The courts declared that yes the building was illegal.
The county then simply reissued a building license and when confronted the mayor said something like “how can this project be illegal when I just gave them a license.”
The hotel is also fugly and given its past their is no reason to believe that it will be run responsibly. Again, the destruction from the waste of hundreds of people a day in one tiny area cannot compare to the tossing of garbage by the local community.
If the Chateau did its job the whole beach would be clean. In any case it is a bizarre argument that instead of pushing for a cleaner environment we should build artificial garbage free bubbles.