By Esme Yeh / Staff reporter
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The Ministry of Environment has released a climate-themed glove puppetry short film taking place in Yunlin County’s Chenglong Wetlands (成龍溼地) to increase awareness on climate change adaptation.
The ministry produced the film in collaboration with Sheng-Wu-Chou Puppet Troupe, and with assistance from the Kuan-Shu Educational Foundation and the I-Mei Environmental Protection Foundation.
The Chenglong Wetlands were once known as “the community below sea level” after seawater from typhoons Wayne (1986) and Herb (1996) flooded the area’s farmland, a region that had long suffered from land subsidence due to overpumping of groundwater, the ministry said on Thursday.
Photo: CNA
The farmland soaking in salt water gradually became wetlands, and the wetlands were initially preserved as ecological fallow land from 2005, it said.
The authorities collaborated with the Kuan-Shu Educational Foundation to promote ecological restoration and community cultural revitalization around the wetlands in 2009, and listed them as a national scenic site in 2019, it said.
The ministry said that according to its Climate Change in Taiwan: National Scientific Report 2024 copublished with the National Science and Technology Council, if global temperatures rise by less than 2°C, the sea level around Taiwan would increase by about 34.5cm.
The rising sea level would lead to more inundated areas in coastal cities and counties, with Yunlin County being one of the most affected administrative areas, it said.
The Chenglong Wetlands are a good example of effective climate change adaptation strategies, it said.
The ministry said the government has guided local residents to conduct aquaculture farming and set up an online platform to market aquaculture products.
The educational glove puppetry film incorporated the well-known story of Journey to the West (西遊記) into the climate resilience story of the Chenglong Wetlands, it said, adding that it expected to help promote climate change education among elementary and junior-high school students.
The ministry said it is planning the next phase of the national climate change adaptation program, which would focus on community-based adaptation and could draw inspirations from the Chenglong Wetlands.
The Kuan-Shu Educational Foundation would provide eight sessions of field trips to the Chenglong Wetlands for junior and senior-high schools in the second half of this year to help raise students’ awareness of climate risks, foundation chief executive officer Hung Tsui-jan (洪粹然) said.
The glove puppetry film is available on the ministry’s YouTube channel at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQ3vdwctoDU.
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