[Environment & Wildlife Conservation] More Than Thirty Thousand People Subscribe for Shares to Conserve White Dolphins, Setting Another Milestone of Taiwan's Environmental Trust Movement

[Environment & Wildlife Conservation] More Than Thirty Thousand People Subscribe for Shares to Conserve White Dolphins, Setting Another Milestone of Taiwan's Environmental Trust Movement (Chinese Version)

Taiwan Environmental Information Center (2010/07/07) The movement, originated by Taiwan Environmental Information Association (TEIA), that invites the public to subscribe shares for the conservation easement of the Chinese White Dolphins' habitat, has collected more than thirty-five thousand shareholders and more than 1.5 million shares since the day the movement began on April 12. The association submitted the environmental trust application proposal to Ministry of the Interior on July 7; this, not only being the first case of environmental trust application in Taiwan but also implying the fact that the public puts up a capital of more than 1.8 hundred million NT dollars together to purchase the conservation easement of the Changhwa coast from the government, sets an important milestone for the environmental trust movement that has lasted a decade in Taiwan.

The first TEIA president as well as Assistant Professor at School of Forestry and Resource Conservation, National Taiwan University, Dau-Jye LU points out, the movement shows to the public that each of us can do something for environmental conservation, and the enthusiastic responses from the public also help multiple the effect of environmental education and promotion, making the movement itself a very wonderful exemplar.

Deputy Director of TEIA Dao-yuan SIA still remembers the time when the founders of the association began to meet together out of the idea of environmental trust. At the beginning, the association tried to draw people's attention by holding workshops, but the meager amount of the responses and attentions made them change their mind. They decided to work on “information” first. Besides, since 2004, they, following the way the foreign trust institutions promote their projects, have held more than fifty “ecological working holidays.” TEIA Director Jui-Pin CHEN believes, the difficulties they met at the beginning must be resulted from the society's lack of knowledge of “environmental trust”; there was no lack of the concept of “trust,” but we did not have enough cases of “material trust” such as land trust or river trust – we do not have the idea to regard the wild animals and plants as having equal rights to the environment as we do.

As for the success of the movement, Jui-Pin CHEN thinks it is because (1) the participation threshold is low – each share for 119 NT dollars so that the public is easy to participate; (2) Chinese White Dolphins themselves are cute and attractive; (3) the participated parties' open attitude without fussing with the discriminations or each party's own interest creates a positive social atmosphere.

Dao-Jye LU points out, the concept of eco-conservation trust can greatly benefit the NGO's with regard to the operative mechanism, especially to those NPO's which have a large demand for cost control. “Trust” can be operated on specific items; environmental trust can be applied to bio-diversity, land, resources, culture, earth heritage, etc. The idea is actually very advanced. However, several items such as CO2 and the ocean are still problematic for they are not intuitively restricted to property right or ownership. For these items we still need further discussion.

As for the relation between ecological working holiday and environmental trust, TEIA points out, when an environmental trust is effective, ecological working holiday can be a very suitable means for habitat management. Ecological working holiday is the interface for resources collection, fund raising and participants inviting. TEIA stresses, the activity is unique among other types of activity because with the environmental trust, the holiday event in the effected area is no longer a mere camping or education activity; the participants are actually taking parts in habitat conservation. This has made the holiday activities more meaningful.


Further Information:
Taiwan Environment Information Center 2010/07/07 (Chinese)



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