Taichung: Conservation groups on Wednesday accused developers at the Port of Taichung of planning to sidestep environmental reviews, warning the projects threaten the endangered Indo-Pacific humpback dolphin, also known as Matsu's Fish.

According to Focus Taiwan, Kuo Chia-wen, a researcher with the Wild at Heart Legal Defense Association, stated that the Port of Taichung, along with CPC Corp., Taiwan, and Taiwan Power Co. (Taipower), are pursuing harbor projects in ways that aim to evade environmental impact assessments. These planned projects include land reclamation by the Port of Taichung for CPC's expansion of LNG Terminal 2 and Taipower's construction of LNG Terminal 5. The projects collectively cover 600 hectares, approximately 20 percent of the Taichung Harbor outer port area.

The developers are reportedly adopting a "divide and conquer" strategy, intending to split large projects into smaller ones to bypass environmental impact assessments, as explained by Kuo. This approach raises significant concerns for the critically endangered Taiwan's subspecies of the Indo-Pacific humpback dolphin, with fewer than 50 remaining near its main habitat around Taichung Harbor.

In response to these accusations, the Port of Taichung asserted that its outer harbor expansion project is still undergoing environmental impact assessment according to the law. The findings from this assessment are expected to serve as an important reference for subsequent project reviews.