greater attention to ensuring balance in national policy among economic
development, environmental protection, and social justice. Nation-wide
ENGOs formed from the early to mid-1990s. In addition to organizing
grassroots demonstrations, these ENGOs also educated the public on
environmental issues.
The institutionalization of environmental protection
From the late 1990s to the present (2005), Taiwan’s ENGOs have mastered
more complex skills in addressing governmental bureaucracies and
accommodating domestic demands. Mass demonstrations are less raucous,
and ENGOs have developed greater expertise in monitoring governmental
policies. Environmental NGOs have used the results of opinion surveys and
field research to expose Taiwan’s environmental situation. Environmental
NGOs have also linked Taiwan’s environmental issues to international
concerns. Environmentalists and local politicians have cultivated a special
relationship of ‘struggle and co-existence’. For instance, ENGOs and some
local politicians promote the use of the referendum to decide on major
construction projects (as noted in Chapter 6). In addition to focusing on
community pollution and NIMBY effects, ENGOs have raised new
environmental concerns such as wetlands protection and the conservation of
biodiversity. This is reflected in the passage of Environmental Impact
Assessment (EIA) laws in 1994 and the revision of the Wildlife Protection
Laws in the mid-1990s.
In reviewing Taiwan’s environmental movement history since the 1990s,
one notes that two major obstacles, corruption of money and power, have
emerged on the long road toward sustainable development. In some instances,
pollution compensation has distorted the essence of environmental protection.
Politicians staged large-scale protests in order to negotiate higher com-
pensation amounts from enterprises, chiefly from state-owned enterprises
(SOEs). The major task of local leaders then is to guarantee the arrival of
compensation money and to see that it is distributed equitably to all villagers.
In order to win political support at the grassroots level, the central government
even directly orders SOEs to provide cash compensation. This diminishes the
ability of government to design correct mechanisms to remedy environmental
pollution.
Transformation of ENGO Strategies and Activities
In its early years, Taiwan’s environmental movement was subject to intense
political manipulation. Since the year 2000, the first democratic transition of
power in Taiwan, ENGOs have adopted functional and accommodative
strategies to guide their activities. At the first stage of Taiwan’s environmental
162 Governance of biodiversity conservation in China and Taiwan