German Wind Energy Firm InfraVest Violates Human Rights in Taiwan

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:

https://www.facebook.com/YuanLicarzywindmills?fref=ts

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:

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/biz/archives/2010/02/26/2003466675

 

Appendix 3

Relevant picture, infographic, news and video that proof the violent treatment to protesters.