The discovery of an endemic species of soybean was the catalyst
Taiwan News
Date: 2017/09/09
By: Light McCandless, Taiwan News, Staff Writer
TAIPEI (Taiwan News)–The Wanda hydro-electric generating station, completed by the
Taipower’s Wanda Power Station. Image: Wikimedia Commons
Japanese just before the outbreak of WWII is now an environmental education center.
In 2012 Taipower began an overhaul of the Wanda power station 台電萬大電廠 , installing three new generators and upgrading a fourth. In 2013 the installation was completed, replacing aged equipment that had been in use since the late 1950’s.
Then, in 2013 a species of unique endemic Taiwan soybean was discovered in the lush mountains around the Nantou County Renai Township Wanda power plant. To cultivate this rare Taiwan endemic plant, Taipower invited domestic biodiversity and ecological conservation experts together to plan rehabilitation of the area. At the same time, it decided to promote the Wanda plant as a green energy and environmental education base.
Taipower then took 3 years to train some of its engineers as environmental education teachers and design six sets of environmental education courses. The site is now Taiwan’s first renewable energy and environmental teaching site. Taipower said that NTU Institute of Plant Biology Professor Huang Tseng-chuan (黃增泉) had compared this rehabilitation exercise with that of the Chichiawan stream (七家灣溪) Formosan landlocked salmon (櫻花鉤吻鮭). After Wanda suceeded in growing the soybeans in 2013, Taipower decided to change the old post office dormitory near the power plant into an education center. [FULL STORY]
