The Lung Chuan Anti-Industrial Zone Self-Relief Alliance launched an online endorsement campaign to prevent the farming area from being developed into an industrial zone. “More than 10,000 people have endorsed the campaign,” said a spokesman of the alliance.

The spokesman said that there are some 500 scholars and experts from 77 domestic colleges and universities, National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology, the Ministry of Science and Technolopgy, and National Museum of Marine Biology and Aquarium completing their endorsements online.

At the press conference, Huang Hsiu-mei, head of the Institute of Wildlife Conservation of the National Pingtung University of Science and Technology, said that the plastic auto parts plant planned for the Lung Chuan farming area by Formosa Saint Jose Corp. (FSJC) is just two kilometres away from her university. Hence more than 50 teachers and professors from the university alone have joined the endorsement campaign.

Huang called for the Pingtung county government to reject the application by FSJC to set up the plant on the farmland. “If the government fails to drop the project, our protests will continue” Huang said.

Wu Chang-ming, dean of the College of Agriculture of the university, said that there are many idle industrial zones, and therefore the FSJC should select a more proper site from among them for its proposed plant. Wu said the much higher land cost of industrial zones compared with farmland is something that the government should tackle.

Huang Ta-chun, an assistant professor at the Chia Nan University of Pharmacy and Science, said that the industrial waste from the proposed plant would pose an extremely hazardous environmental threat to farming villages in Neipu Township.

Chiy Yu-bin, president of the Taiwan Association for Human Rights, also lashed out at the Pingtung county government for failing to prevent industrial invasion into the farming areas in the county, adding that the government should try its best to preserve what is left of the country’s ever-decreasing agricultural land.