Assessing the ecological loss of mining areas in Taiwan.

Abstract

Mines are mostly located in the mountains and national forestlands in Taiwan. The development and use of mines have severely damaged the environment. Despite the long history of mining, the value of forest ecological services lost during mining operations have not yet been incorporated into the expenses borne by miners, and miners are not liable for compensation for ecological damage. This study evaluated the forest ecosystem service benefits lost since mining began, with the aim of providing future reference for calculating ecological damage related to mining. We investigated Mount Taibai mines in Yilan (northeast Taiwan) and Mount Yongshi mines in Hualian (east Taiwan), which are richly forested areas. According to Article 13 of the Mining Act in Taiwan, mining rights have a limitation of 20years, and the two mines in this study have been in operation for 20years. By using four ecological services-forest production, carbon sequestration, water resource replenishment, and forest recreation-we estimated the loss of ecological values in both mining regions. The result indicated that the loss of total forest production benefits over 20years was 7,498.6k New Taiwanese dollars (NTD) in Mount Taibai mines and 6,543.1k NTD for Mount Yongshi mines, while the loss for the total carbon sequestration benefits over 20years was 19,950k NTD in Mount Taibai mines and 17,400k NTD in Mount Yongshi mines. The loss of value for the total water conservation benefits over 20years was 11,160k NTD in Mount Taibai mines and 5,070k NTD in Mount Yongshi mines. The loss value of forest recreation over 20years was 1,443,855k NTD for the two mines.