| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立中正大學 === 政治學所 === 96 === Abstract
In 1998, the government approved an application for gravel extraction at Pillow Hill of Huben village located at the Linnei, Yunlin County. Later, it planed to built a garbage incinerator and a reservoir in the neighboring district. Local inhabitants worried that the environment and natural ecology would be destroyed by these construction projects hereafter. They organized at the grass-root level to protest against the governmental policies by forming a variety of associations including Anti-Gravel Extraction, Pitta Nympha Protection, Anti-Constructing Incinerator, Anti-Constructing Hushan Reservoir. On the other hand, landowners in this district, who considered to be benefited from the development, organized contending groups to protect their own interests.
This research investigated the activities of both advocating and contending groups. The following questions are to be answered through direct observation and collecting news reports, group meeting records: (1) Why so many environmental groups were organized in an agricultural township with the population of twenty thousands? (2) What actions did they take? (3) What strategies and tactics did they use? (4) Had any influence on governmental policies and local politics? (5) If any, what were they?
It was found that the motivation of environmental group organizers was multi-folded, but the most significant one was the cause of protecting their homeland. Major strategies they used were grass-root mobilization, petition, legislative and executive lobbying, protest, and international lobby. Governmental policies were dragged by the action of groups. Most importantly, the activities of these environmental groups changed the political ecology of Yunlin County. The former Magistrate was sentenced by the court due to corruption in the construction of the garbage incinerator. The political career of one of the activists in the environmental protection movements was dramatically changed, from the village head to the legislator in the Legislative Yuan.
|
|---|
