The 10th Asia-Pacific Nongovernmental Organizations’ Environmental Conference opened in Taipei Nov. 20, featuring discussions on such issues as natural disasters and energy policy, environmental legal proceedings, pollution from high-tech industries and habitat protection.
More than 100 NGO members and scholars from 23 countries have gathered at the two-day meeting to exchange ideas and local experience with environmental issues, according to organizer the Society of Wilderness, Taiwan.
Important participating NGOs include Australia’s Rainforest Information Center, Japan Environment Council, International Campaign for Responsible Technology and Korea Center for Asbestos Related Diseases, SOW said.
In a keynote speech Nov. 20, Hisakazu Kato, JEC board member and Nagoya University professor, drew the forum’s attention to increasing climate change, loss of diversity and natural disasters in the Asia-Pacific region over the past two decades.
Kato said multiple, ongoing environmental crises in Japan’s Tohoku area have resulted from the tsunami triggered by the March 11 earthquake, which severely damaged the Fukushima Taiichi nuclear plant. In constructing the nuclear power plant complex, he said, Japan ignored the fact that a tsunami of similar magnitude struck in the same place 900 years ago.
“Increasing climate change will lead to more unpredictable disasters, for which humanity must prepare in advance.”
Kato advised nations to collaborate on addressing cross-border pollution, protecting wildlife and biodiversity, and working towards the goals set by the Kyoto Protocol regarding the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.
“In setting environmental policy, governments must not act alone, but should actively incorporate input from the society,” he said.
APNEC, first held in Bangkok in 1991, is one of the most important environmental forums in the Asia-Pacific region. Taiwan previously hosted the forum in Kaohsiung in 2002.
