Our July 3rd lecture was on Environmental Issues in Taiwan. Our presenter Zhen-yuan Chen provided an excellent presentation. We learned mostly about Taiwan’s industrial sector and how illegal factories have been a widespread problem ever since the policy of, “Using Agriculture to Support Industry,” allowed for factories to be constructed in agricultural areas. These factories popped up quickly because agricultural land and labor in these areas is cheap. Currently there are 40,000 factories in agriculture land in Taiwan. The main issue with these agricultural is that they dump waste upstream compared to factories in industrial sectors that dump waste at the bottom of rivers. This practice of upstream factories pollutes the entire river, which entails the pollution of food crops and tap water. Zhen-yuan Chen proposed that to solve this problem we need to improve the factories transparency. Ideally, by using agricultural land mapping (which would map where factories’ waste ends up) and by measuring the waste of each factory, we can catalog the environmental impact of each factory and call upon government action.

In class we discussed the pros and cons of these illegal factories, possible solutions, and how these illegal factories make for an example of other environmental issues in Taiwan. Our group considered the idea that agricultural factories are economically beneficial for those living in more rural areas. And our group does agree that because agricultural land is cheaper, this might make the barrier for breaking into industry easier too. Though we don’t see how realistically factories on agricultural land further from the coast could safely dispose of their hazardous waste in an economically practical fashion.

On the July 4th we learned about how we can create wildlife friendly cities from Si-Min Lin. Across Taiwan, species diversity is decreasing through a combination of invasive species and shrinking habitats. Sin-Min Lin proposed that wildlife friendly cities could be a solution. Data has found that civet populations around the National Taiwan University are sizable and hawk nests are found to be more successful at raising chicks in urban areas than compared to rural. As much as urban wildlife sounds safer for certain animal groups, animals face new artificial dangers they wouldn’t face in the wild. In urban settings 75% of young and adult civet deaths are from car accidents and dog attacks. Birds dying from glass collisions is also a large issue in Taiwan.

In class we discussed what impacts social media use could have on protecting urban wildlife and weather urban wildlife should even be protected.

A program to monitor hawk nests in Taipei blew up on the internet over covid as people became interested in their local hawk nests livestreams. This had a positive impact on the hawk population as the live stream educated civilians on how to interfere less with the urban hawk population. We think that better educating citizens on other urban wildlife issues such as roadkill’s or window collisions would decrease the number of bird and civet deaths. Though we couldn’t brainstorm any possible media form ideas that could build social media attention.

One question our group was asking itself was weather urban wildlife even warrants protection. Because the urban environment isn’t technically a natural environment, by simply keeping wildlife out of urban areas they would be free of urban issues such as roadkill or window deaths. A counter argument to investing in better urban wildlife protection would be investing in more nature area conservation.

For the afternoon of July 3rd and July 4th we had the afternoon to work on our small group projects. We grouped up with NTU (National Taiwan University) students to work on lightning talk presentations. The presentation topics covered the main themes of our first two weeks, Eco-cities and Food and agriculture. My group chose to talk about food as culture and identity. We collaborated with the NTU students by comparing food cultures in Taipei vs Seattle. There are a lot of cultural food practices that we got to compare, along with how Taiwanese culture has influenced the United States, and how the United State’s food culture has influenced Taiwan.

Talking with the NTU students about what American food culture versus Taiwanese food culture was surprisingly fun. We learned from the NTU students that Starbucks and McDonalds are the first two American food’s that come to mind. Our group was surprised to learn that McDonalds is a common lunch for some NTU students, so much so that they have it served in their cafeterias. The NTU students found it funny when we told them that McDonalds isn’t common with college students in Seattle, and that we thought that McDonalds in Taipei tasted better than in the US.

Overall getting a chance to talk connect over food with the NTU students was a very enjoyable experience and made for easy conversation and learning between both groups.