German Wind Energy Firm InfraVest Violates Human Rights in
Taiwan
InfraVest, a subsidiary of German comapny VWIND AG is
currently involved in a highly controversial wind turbine investment on
Taiwan's west coast. In the absence of a thorough public consultation, and
taking advantage of loopholes in Taiwanese law, InfraVest has been able to
undermine rules governing the need for a proper environmental impact assessment
and proper wind turbine placement. This has led to the peaceful protest of
residents in Yuanli, Miaoli County. For the past two months, protestors have
been treated like criminals and have been accused of being anti-sustainable
energy rioters. The local Yuanli Self-Help Organization claims, in the
strongest way, that energy without democracy and public consultation is just as
harmful as non-sustainable energy.
Out of the 7,682 residents of Yuanli, 4,281 signed the
petition opposing the construction of wind turbines that are too close to human
settlement. Our concerns are as follows:
1.
In total, there are to be 14 wind turbines (≥120
m) installed along 3 km of coastline, with the closest a mere 134m from human
settlement. A number of these have already been built in an area reserved for
bird conservation.
2.
Local residents were not adequately informed or
provided a proper public consultation session prior to construction, and InfraVest
manipulated data and paperwork to obtain approval from the EPA without proper
public consultation. (See Appendix 1)
3.
Moreover, by submitting a single Environmental
Impact Assessment (EIA) application for Yuanli, Tongsiao and Jhunan townships,
InfraVest created the illusion off a much larger area for the wind farms, and
were able to exceed the 10 percent land usage limit. By doing so, it also
avoided having to address the three townships’ specific and unique
environmental requirements. After receiving conditional EIA approval, InfraVest
submitted a Difference of Environmental Impact (DEI) evaluation and requested
that five wind turbine sites be shifted to Yuanli, bringing the total there to
14, which is well above the 10 percent limit.
4.
Facing the opposition from local residents,
InfraVest has stepped up security by deploying private security on site at all
times, where they trail and prevent visitors and residents from accessing the
beach and embankment, taking law into their own hands. They have also responded
to peaceful demonstration with violence, manufacturing fight scene confusion
which led to the police arresting protesters. Peaceful protesters have been
physically violated as a result.
5.
InfraVest has also sued the Yuanli Self-Help Organization,
claiming 10 million NTD in reparation, citing local residents as obstructing
construction.
Responding to these uncivilized commercial means of
InfraVest Wind Power Co., Taiwan's wind power monopoly (See Appendix 2). The
Yuanli Self-Help Organization makes three demands of InfraVest and the related
governmental departments, and that only when following demands are met, can the
development of renewable energy be truly sustainable in regards to Taiwan's
democracy, human rights, and the environment:
1.
InfraVest immediately suspends construction of
all wind turbines and to re-negotiate with the residents of Yuanli, and provide
in-depth explanations of known and potential impacts of such a dense wind
turbine cluster. It is InfraVest’s responsibility to address the local
residents’ concerns, and not to force construction by sacrificing the safety
and well-being of local residents.
2.
Since the environmental-impact assessment is
illegal (See Appendix 1), the Environmental Protection Administration must
require InfraVest to perform a reassessment, and prevent InfraVest from
continuing construction before the reassessment has been approved.
3.
The Ministry of Economic Affairs must create
clear regulations as to the safe distance of wind turbines in order to maintain
public safety. Before the regulations in place, InfraVest must immediately stop
construction, ensuring the safety of the residents of Yuanli.
This is not a NIMBY protest. This action is to oppose an
international business monopoly that is trying to dictate to a group of
innocent farmers in rural Asia (See Appendix 4). Because renewable energy in
the EU is regulated with democratic procedures and proper environment
assessment, it is shame to see that a German company resorting to such illegal
and underhanded tactics in order to plunder natural resources outside of
Europe. We ask the EU wind energy community to condemn this company.
Contacts:
Lin, Hsiu-Fan (林秀芃) , Spoken
person of Yuanli Self-Help Group, Taiwan
+886-987-027-207
autoamateur@gmail.com
Lin, Ying Tzu, Press editor, Taiwan
+886-922-873-806
b93601033@ntu.edu.tw
For breaking news and comment on affair:
Notes:
Appendix 1
According to the Difference of Environmental Impact (DEI) evaluation
InfraVest summited to the Environmental Protection Department in Taiwan, the
no.53 turbine is planned to constructing in
The no. 53 turbine by
plan is Yuan-Gung village. However, from the follwing eveidence (pic.1), we see
how InfraVest cheated on our people: at 11th, 14th of July, 2012, the DEI
public investigation of Yuan-Gung village’s no.53 turbine was done in Xi-Ping
village, which is another village has nothing to do with the planned site
Yuan-Gung village. This is the first eveidence that InfraVest suspected fake
data. Secondly, residents in Xi-Ping village who signed this investigation
prooved that they weren’t informed about the potential environmental impact of
the setting of turbine, neither image of the turbine, actual place of the
turbine. Moreover, from the picture we saw that the handwritings of signiture
and content in the investigation are obviously different. This indicate to the
fact that the residents were only asked to sign the name, the rest of question
are asked by the crew of InfraVest and written by those crews. On the other
hand, the real stakeholder-- residents of
Yuan-Gung village were informed about this construction work until
September, 2012, in when the construction works are all about to start. These
all pointed out that InfraVest manipulated the DEI investigation, cheated on
the local residents. Due to this bad record, InfraVest did not pass the
Environmental assessment for the next wind farm they planned to invest in
another coast.
Appendix 2
About the fact that
InfraVest is the monoply of wind power
production company in Taiwan, the news paper Taipei Times had relevent quoation
about the truth. According to the news on 2010, which InfraVest claimed to
leave Taiwan market, the first sentences wriiten ‘German firm InfraVest Wind Power Co,
Taiwan’s only private wind power generator, confirmed yesterday it was pulling
out of the market because it “doesn’t have confidence” in the government’s push
for renewable energy.’ Appparantly InfraVest did not leave Taiwan market,
otherwise we won’t writing this media packge here.
Reference:
Appendix 3
Relevant picture,
infographic, news and video that proof the violent treatment to protesters.
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