Taiwan Church News
3178 Edition
January 21-27, 2013
Headline News

Reported by Simon Lin

Written by Lydia Ma

”Without a consensus and some strategies, our opposition all for naught at the end of the day,” said Paiwan Presbytery’s Church and Society Division Director Rev. Ljumeg during a seminar discussing the construction of the Shih-Wen Dam, which will be built near Shih-Wen and Ku-Hua Presbyterian churches. The seminar was held at Shih-Wen Presbyterian Church on January 18, 2013 and its purpose was to unite pastors and parishioners and clarify indigenous people’s opposition to irresponsible exploitation of natural resources. According to indigenous groups, projects such as this new dam spearheaded by the Water Resource Agency (WRA) threaten their culture, livelihood, properties, living space, and lives.

The problem began when the WRA announced that it planned to build a dam in Chunrih Township on Shih-Wen Creek. Shih-Wen Presbyterian Church sits upstream of the Shih-Wen Creek while Ku-Hua Church sits downstream of the creek. The news of a possible dam to be built in the area raised concerns among villagers because the local soil is already very soft and the mountain slopes are very slippery and exploiting the land would trigger landslides. In fact, the area has been barred from development unless it is for defense and national purposes, but the WRA managed to reclassify this project to fit this special category in 2011 and began to hold public hearings to pave the way for construction. However, indigenous residents claim that the WRA neither listened nor respected the views of the residents during these hearings, prompting them to oppose the project even more vehemently.

The Church and Society Division invited former Tainan County Agriculture Bureau chief, Chou Ke-jen, to speak about his past experiences working alongside pastors in opposing the construction of the Majia Dam. Chou said that previous efforts to oppose new dams centered on protecting the environment. However, the most compelling reason indigenous groups can use to oppose the Shih-Wen Dam is that it will destroy indigenous culture and traditional lands associated with it and make it a “war to protect culture”.

Rev. Ljumeg said that this seminar was an important reminder to indigenous peoples on the effects of new dams on indigenous villages and urged the audience to include women and youths in the next seminar so that everyone would be informed. Paiwan Presbytery also arranged a tour of the Mudan Dam so that the audience would get a better glimpse of the effects of a new dam on their community. During the tour, Chou underscored what would happen to villages downstream if a dam were to burst and added that Pingtung is situated along a fault line, making the area unsuitable for building dams. Furthermore, in the aftermath of Typhoon Morakot, a lot of silt buildup has been noted along Shih-Wen Creek, making the creek akin to a quake lake. Though experts would never recommend building a dam there, government officials claim that they possess the technology to overcome these difficulties.

According to Chou, the WRA claimed that the purpose for building this dam is to provide much needed water for Pingtung County residents in the near future. However, such a claim has been questioned by Pingtung County and Pingtung Irrigation Association. Chou pointed out that the government has long since created a false impression that the nation is suffering from water shortages because officials want to use it as a pretext to build dams and benefit corporations.