Strategic planning for a wetlands conservation greenway along the west coast of Taiwan

Most of the wetlands in Taiwan have been filled, over-exploited, or polluted, and this has injured coastal ecosystems and damaged local public welfare. As a result of global trading and Taiwanʹs recent membership in the World Trade Organization (WTO), capital investments in local traditional agriculture and aquaculture will further decline and cause greater recession in rural areas. To help address this growing problem, a strategic plan designed to conserve, restore, and properly utilize the wetlands of Taiwan is proposed. The primary goal is to establish a “wetlands conservation greenway”, which combines wetland areas that currently merit designation as protected areas with adjacent areas that are subject to wise utilization (sustainable use) or that need to be rehabilitated. This plan will create a large corridor along the north–south axis of the west coast of Taiwan, which will connect the various types of wetlands to form a conservation greenway. The conservation greenway will help maintain or reestablish the continuity and integrity of diverse wetland areas and promote the development of general guidelines for the national management and regulation of wetlands. Within the greenway, three different types of wetland management areas are recognized: protected areas, ecological parks (for sustainable use), and restoration areas. Each type of wetland management area will have a distinct management approach based on its contribution to wetlands conservation goals. Other important elements of this strategy include: (1) a philosophy for managing coastal wetlands, (2) a delineation of the proposed greenway, its distinct areas, and approaches proposed for their respective management, (3) an implementation framework and action plans, and (4) an example of conservation proposal for a section of the coastal wetlands conservation greenway in Changhua County in west-central Taiwan.