Report on the 2015 Environmental History Workshop (1)
held at the Institute of Taiwan History, Academia Sinica
◆ News (Mar. 20, 2015)
By Pin-Tsang Tseng (Assistant Research Fellow, Institute of Taiwan History, Academia Sinica) for the morning section and Ya-wen Ku (Assistant Research Fellow, Institute of Taiwan History, Academia Sinica) for the afternoon section
Dr. Der-Chin Horng (洪德欽), Research Fellow of the Institute of European and American Studies, Academia Sinica, presented his study on “The Amendment Proposal of the Act Governing Food Safety and Sanitation: The Inspiration from the Food Safety System of the European Union (EU).” A chain of serious food safety problems recently in Taiwan has revealed the emergent need to amend the Act Governing Food Safety and Sanitation. Prof. Horng’s study introduces and analyzes the food safety system of the EU, aiming to provide a reference structure or an example to deliberate the amendment proposal in the future. Prof. Horng explained the background and key concepts of the food safety system of the EU, laying significant stress on the legal basis, the Law and its practice. Among the others, the roles and functions of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and the EU Reference Laboratories were highlighted. The EU had also built the mechanism of risk analysis. The experiences of the EU provide important directions and concrete suggestions for the legal amendment in Taiwan.
Dr. Marlon Zhu (朱瑪瓏), Assistant Research Fellow of the Institute of Modern History, Academia Sinica, presented his study on “The Failure of the Machine Dredging on the Woosung Inner Bar in the 1880s.” Instead of “successful” stories of the introduction of western technologies in Treaty-port China, Zhu introduced a doomed case of the dredging of a bar in the Whangpoo River (黃浦江) that had interfered the shipping access to Shanghai. There were professional surveys suggesting sound plans to improve the situation of detention other than mere dredging. Nonetheless, the Qing government still, under the persistent pressure from the mercantile community in Shanghai, ordered and employed a single hopper dredger from Britain to dredge the Bar without other necessary measures. This proved to be in vain in the early 1890s.
Dr. I-Chiao Wang (王一樵), a PhD from the Department of History, National Taiwan University and current serves as an assistant of Humanities Lectures Course of Academia Sinica, gave a presentation on his ongoing research titled “The Water Resources Management and City Flood Disaster Control of Beijing City in the Qing Dynasty”. The purpose of his research is to examine the policy and civilian response to flood and the problems of water resources in Qing capital Beijing. He challenged the previous statement which said that the relatedhistorical materials were too limited to support the research, and introduced some useful materials such as official archives, local choreographies, gazetteer of rivers, historic maps, novels and newspapers.
Dr. Ts’ui-jung Liu (劉翠溶), an adjunct Research Fellow of the Institute of Taiwan History, Academia Sinica, gave her reading report on China’s New Urbanization Strategy, edited by China Development Research Foundation (London and New York: Routledge, 2013). The editor of this volume is one of the leading economic think tanks in China. Dr. Liu’s report focuses on Introduction, Chapters 1, 8 and 10. Chapter 1 provides an overall discussion on process, trends and challenges of urbanization in China since 1949; Chapter 8 points out a “green path” toward urbanization, and in the last chapter (chapter 10), the editors came up with 14 policy recommendations for implementing the strategy of urbanization in China.
(Special Note: News from the Association for East Asian Environmental History (AEAEH), Website: http://www.aeaeh.org.)
