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Site description (2001 baseline):

Extent of this site: located in Kaohsiung County northwest of Yungan Village in Yantian Village. It is on the east side of a former salt field which now holds the Taiwan Power (Taipower) Company’s Hsingda firepower station. The IBA site is situated on the border between Chieding and Yungan Villages in Hsingda Harbor’s inner sea where the area once reached 500 ha. In the 1960’s the government reclaimed land from the sea to build Hsingda Harbor. In 1975, after construction of the Hsingda firepower station, the area of the mangroves slowly decreased. The former saline beaches of this area combined with water retention by irrigation canals and natural lakes allowed the mangrove species, Black Mangrove Avicennia marina and Lumnitzera Lumnitzera racemosa, to grow densely, attracting thousands of waterbirds; formerly this was the largest stand of mangroves in southern Taiwan. In 1985 Taipower purchased this area from the Taiwan Salt Company, and their plan was to use it to store ash from the fire-powered generating station. But because there was no direct resolution of compensation problems between the local residents concerning items on the land, the plan has not been realized and the former saline beaches have formed an area of natural wetlands.

IBA A4i criterion species: Kentish Plover • This is the most important breeding and wintering site in Taiwan for this species. Year Dec. 1995 Jan. 1996 Feb. 1997 Jan. 1998 Jan. 1999 Jan. 2000 Sept. 2000 No. of KP 4600 2871 1603 156 150 300 37 • At this site, 106 Species have been recorded including: Black-faced Spoonbill (3 birds on 29 November 1999); Chinese Egret (4 on 1 May 1999); Saunders’s Gull; Osprey; Peregrine Falcon; Black-billed Magpie; Northern Wryneck; several hundred terns and thousands of Charadriidae and Scolopacidae.

Non-bird biodiversity: • There are diversified mangrove ecosystems, especially at the stands of Black Mangrove Avicennia marina. In addition, this is the southernmost distribution of the Lumnitzera Lumnitzera racemosa, so the site is worthy of preservation.

• Taipower has established an area for the disposal of waste coal ash. • There is a plan for the Hsingda Ocean Culture Park. Although both the projects are not finalized yet, their implementation in the future could directly affect the integrity of this IBA and probably will completely destroy the natural condition of the area. Further efforts are needed to keep the integrity of this natural habitat for a variety of living organisms. • There has been large-scale cutting of and damage to the mangroves. Hsingda Harbor, the firepower station, Chinese Petroleum Corporation, and Yuanyang Fishing Harbor construction all have destroyed large areas of the mangroves. Because of the transformation of shallow-water cultivation of Chanos chanos into the deep-water cultivation for grouper and Penaeus monodon, the need for the windbreak function of the mangroves was reduced. Traditionally, the mangroves are used to stabilize the banks of fishponds with the need of regular maintenance by much labor work. However, since heavy machines have been well developed for stabilizing banks of fishponds, it has replaced the mangrove’s function.

Lobbying activities: • At the southern edge of the Hsingda Harbor at the old salt factory, there is an abandoned pond, around which grows Lumnitzera Lumnitzera racemosa. This pond is important bird habitat, so in 1995, birders recommended that the core area around this pond, including the surrounding wastelands, be designated a waterbird reserve. Negotiations concerning this recommendation occurred among the Kaohsiung County government, Kaohsiung Wild Bird Society, and Taipower. • In 1996, the Kaohsiung County Government proposed the establishment of the Yungan Wetland Nature Park on 40% or 130 ha of the wetlands surrounding these former salt fields. A planning report and an interpretive pamphlet of this area were completed in succession. Land use within the area is primarily Taipower land, flood discharge canals, the wetland nature park area, and new communities; among these, the nature park area can be divided into mangrove recovery areas, cultural and historical areas, wetlands succession areas, wetland ecological experimental areas, ecologically sensitive areas, wind protection forest areas, and flood buffering areas. • The county government is planning to collect the lands of the 130-ha wetlands district by district in order to establish a wetland park. Only 43 ha of the wetland park are reserved for Taipower to store coal ashes. This has raised the opposition of Taipower and affected the plan of establishing the wetland park.

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Recommended citation
BirdLife International (2024) Important Bird Area factsheet: Yungan (Taiwan, China). Downloaded from https://datazone.birdlife.org/site/factsheet/yungan-iba-taiwan-china on 23/11/2024.