Conserve Water for the Love of Taiwan 

The Formosa Island has many magnificent and exquisite landscapes to astonish the world, but the cruel fact behind these beautiful sceneries is: the Island can no longer find proper location to build a reservoir.

Taiwan ranks the 18th in the world for the risk of water shortage.  The privilege of having water running out of the faucet every day has contributed to the bad habit of wasting water despite water scarcity.  With the continuous developments of high water-consuming industries, and the failure to implement water-efficient policies, what we can gain may never recover with what we shall lose.

The “Taiwan Water, Fountain of Life” Water Exhibition sponsored by the Far Eastern Group has examined the water scarcity in Taiwan through torrential rains, dessert, video image and various interactive devices to educate the public to cherish water resources.

The “Water Exhibition” held at FE EcoARK has marked the record of 300,000 visits within 172 days, more than 400 groups registered to visit the exhibition.  The Far Eastern Group has dedicated to promoting “Conserve Water for the Love of Taiwan”, and hopes to seek for the initial simple “Force” to seed the cherishing water concept deeply into people’s mind.

“Conserve Water for the Love of Taiwan” is an everlasting endeavor convoked at the legendary 7 world’s first records.  Seven years ago, the Far Eastern Group designed and constructed Taipei International Floral Exhibition’s “Fashion Pavilion”.  Under the leadership of Chairman Douglas Tong Hsu, and with the joint efforts and team works of the Group’s 229 affiliated companies and staffs, a world-class green building “FE EcoARK” was finally constructed at the International Floral Exhibition Park.

This green building is built with 1.52 million recycled PET bottles.  It not only demonstrates the miracle of “the world’s first building transformed from garbage”, marked seven of the world’s first records, and also attracted historically high number of 2 million visits during the period of Taipei International Floral Exhibition.

Two million!  What a wonderful and amazing number! However, I pondered over scientist Artur Bart’s quote: “Holding within those mounds of data is knowledge that could change life of a patient, or change the world.”

Therefore, after the Floral Exhibition in 2011, FE EcoARK’s PET bricks were transformed into green constructions and donated to the 100 primary schools affected by the August 8th typhoon.  The aim is to inspire school children on the impact of disaster on environment and life.

Four years later, the Far Eastern Group invested more than NT$55 million to stage the “Water Exhibition” in FE EcoARK, further extends the green spirit.  The idea of “Water Exhibition” was originated from the “Taku Satoh Water Show” where Chairman Douglas Hsu visited in Tokyo in 2007.  He was very impressed, and hopes to promote similar event in Taiwan to remind the public the importance of cherishing water resources.

After 7 long years of exploring and research, the working team of “Water Exhibition” discovered severe challenges of water resources in Taiwan including drying reservoirs, leaking water pipes, reducing/recycling waste water , abundant rainfalls yet difficult to collect, etc.  Each and every issue requires joint efforts of the public and private sectors.

Yet, scholars and experts worry that the biggest challenge is the lack of water scarcity awareness of the general public.  This makes it even harder to change the status quo.  We hope that through “Water Exhibition”, the seed to “Conserve Water” may grow into a grand big tree to remind and alert people.

Nikolayevich Tolstoy once said: “The effort in thoughts is just like a seed that can grow into a big tree.  While you cannot see it with your eyes, eminent changes are occurring inside to affect human social life.”  We believe with all the activities held at the “FE EcoARK” and the 3 million visits from worldwide, the little water drop of water conservation has flown into a long flowing river.

The closing of “Water Exhibition” is the start of “Conserve Water for the Love of Taiwan”.  It is not the end, but to re-look for the “Force” to march toward the vision of overall water conservation and reappear the beauty of Formosa.
(Article published at page A17 of “Economic Daily” on August 31, 2016)＃