Taiwan Environmental Protection Union
台灣環境保護聯盟
The Taiwan Environmental Protection Union (TEPU) links together people concerned about Taiwan's environment to promote the environmental movement and continue Taiwan's environmental objectives. Formed on November 1st, it has been 36 years since the formation of the organization, having become one of Taiwan's oldest national environmental organizations. At present, the TEPU has 1,000 members nationally, with thirteen branches, and an academic committee.
TEPU's Core Advocacy
Environmental protection is a fundamental human right, which is not for sale, and cannot be given up on. For the sake of preserving their long-term living environment, it is necessary for the people to oppose dangerous environmental laws or policies, and they have the right to have oversight over the infrastructure development in their communities.
Humanity depends on the natural environment to survive. Natural resources should be sustainably used and for humans to have a harmonious relationship with nature, there are social, economic, and scientific principles that must be adhered to, which are themselves existential assurance of humanity. Environmental protection is a collective responsibility for humanity, this is without divisions based on borders, ethnicity, religion, or party. For those who are concerned with the environment, as individuals or groups, each should take the initiative to collectively struggle for the environment.
The TEPU is grassroots, knowledge-based, and action-based as an organization. Since our formation, we have sought to continue pushing the environmental movement forward, hoping that in protecting Taiwan's natural environment, we can reduce the harm of environmental pollution, establish Taiwan as a nuclear-free homeland, and allow the Taiwanese people to have a safe, healthy, comfortable, cultured, and sustainable living environment.
The concrete actions of the TEPU include opposing nuclear energy, opposing public harm and protecting the environment, advocating for new policies and providing oversight over existing ones, conducting education and promoting our ideals, interacting with domestic organizations, and interacting with international ones.
The issues we are concerned with include opposing nuclear energy, energy transition, sustainable development. preventing public harm, preventing air pollution, circular reuse of discarded materials, industrial policy, climate change, agricultural policy, national land planning, ecological education, and preventing electromagnetic radiation.
Keywords: Anti-nuclear, nuclear-free homeland, energy transition, sustainable development, ecological protection, preventing public hazards, environmental education
We seek to analyze, hold discussions, public hearings, and research conferences for policy, ordinances, and statutes pertaining to environmental issues, providing recommendations and promoting legislation. This includes the Basic Environmental Act, the Environmental Impact Assessment Act, the Resource Recycling Act, the Soil and Water Conservation Act, the Referendum Act, the Renewable Energy Development Act, the Electromagnetic Radiation Prevention Act, the Spatial Planning Act, the Climate Change Response Act, and other laws. Likewise, we were able to ensure that environmental rights and anti-nuclear clauses entered the constitution, organized a public hearing on the No. 5 Naphtha Cracker, held a civic forestry policy hearing, garbage disposal investigation, civil water resources conference, organic renewable research conference, civic industrial policy and environmental protections research conference, coastal wetland protection research conference, civic energy research conference, and other meetings. We further held a No. 6 Naphtha Cracker Environmental Impact Assessment Report, Verification, and Commentary, Nuclear Reactor No. 4 Re-assessment, and related work.
Organized and participated in the No Nuclear Asia Forum (NNAF), National NGOs Environmental Assembly, Non-Government Energy Assembly, National Anti-Nuclear Action Alliance, United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, and other inter-organizational platforms. The National NGOs Environmental Assembly proves significant in that these organizations have continued to work together twenty years later, along with the organization of the 2014 and 2019 NNAF, inviting environmental organizations across Asia to Taiwan for a meeting, with Vice President Chen Chien-jen welcoming visitors in 2019.
The TEPU began to oppose nuclear energy in 1988. It held anti-nuclear demonstrations, sit-ins, protests, hunger strikes, and organized referendums against Nuclear Reactor No. 4 in Gongliao, Taipei County, Taipei City, and Yilan County. This was aimed at cohering public consensus against nuclear power, allowing the government to establish an aim of a "nuclear-free homeland." In 2014, Nuclear Reactor No. 4 was mothballed, in 2016, the work of promoting the energy transition to a nuclear-free homeland began, and in 2021, we won the referendum against Nuclear Reactor No. 4.
The TEPU has advocated ecological protections since its founding along with other environmental groups, promoting the forestry protection movement, protecting cypress forests in Yilan, opposing the use of water by golf courses, opposing the Machia Reservoir, calling for the preservation of the Alangyi Trail, calling for the protection of the Shanyuan Coast, and calling for protection of the Indo-Pacific humpback dolphin.
From the establishment of the TEPU up until today, local branches joined movements against public harm nationwide. This includes in Kaohsiung against the No. 5 Naphtha Cracker, in Yilan against the No. 6 Naphtha Cracker, in Yunlin against the No. 6 Naphtha Cracker, in Binnan against the No. 7 Naphtha Cracker, in Hualien against Taiwan Cement's TDI's movement of its cement facilities, in Taichung against Bayer's TDI, in Hsinchu against LCY Chemical Company, in Changhua against kuo-kuang, and various environmental demonstrations.
