April 2, 2013 Environmentalist Continues Sitting and Hugging Trees Pan Han-chiang, a volunteer tree protector, decided to continue his living in a banyan tree on the campus of Municipal Chiang-Tsui Junior High School in New Taipei City after the inconclusive meeting of his fellow activists with the authorities. Pan and several retired teachers of the high school are protesting against the plan of removing 32 trees on the campus for the constructions of an underground parking lot and a swimming pool over the parking lot.
Pan Han-chiang climbed up one of the trees to be chopped off or transplanted in the morning of Mar 28, and has been living in the tree for more than five days now. Inspired by Julia Butterfly Hill, who successfully saved the trees to be logged by the Pacific Lumber Company in northern California by living in a tree for 738 days, Pan plans to stay in the tree for a long time until the authorities find more reasonable solutions. This is the longest Hugging Tree since the first one in Songshan Tobacco Plan in 2007.
These retired teachers of Chiang-Tsui Junior High and many people residing in this neighborhood have urged to stop the constructions and spare the ecology since more than six years ago but their voices were never heard by decision makers. Although official Chen agrees with the protesters' view about environment conservation, he claims that the constructions have been contracted and there is no room for any change. He promises he will work on a long term systematic shift for more environmental friendly policies.
In order to respond to the Chen's goodwill, the Association of Tree Hugging is launching a series of public forums to engage a greater public about tree conservation. Also, alternative designs that can remove as few trees as possible are welcome to propose.
The Association has three demands:
1. Stop the constructions to save 300 million NTD(about 10 million USD)
2. Preserve all the trees as well as the ecology and memories of the place
3. Establish a mechanism of public participation and set up open archives about all of trees throughout the city
沒有留言:
張貼留言