Healing the land
Taiwan possesses limited land resources, a fact which naturally lent urgency to the question of how to best rehabilitate the scarred countryside. It certainly would have been a waste to just let a bunch of plots many tens of hectares in size lie in abeyance.
Chou Li-chung, section chief in the EPA's Air Quality Protection and Noise Control department, the agency handling the reclamation of the former landfills, comments that the environmental damage caused by the trash is not so easily undone. Even though the landfills have been closed down, there continues to be seepage of contaminated water and the creation of unwholesome marsh gases, both of which require long-term monitoring in order to curb pollution or any threats to public wellbeing.
Over time, disintegration reduces the volume of trash, but it does so unevenly, resulting in surface soil with uneven degrees of subsidence (caving or sinking), which makes it a tenuous base of support for buildings. After reviewing parallel circumstances in other countries, it was decided that the safest alternative was to turn the former landfills into recreational parks.
Landscaping a region ravaged by years of contact with garbage is a formidable task. In the first five years after the landfills closed the soil was extremely unstable with average subsidence rates of 30-50%. The land clearly needed time to heal.
Only after five years were up did the bureau launch any greening efforts. Chou explains that in the majority of landscaping the planting of grass and trees is undertaken simultaneously. The buildup of marsh gases precluded planting trees for a while; at the peak, underground temperatures soared as high as 40-50 °C, and "the bigger the tree, the deeper the roots; the deeper the roots, the faster it dies." The work had to proceed in step with the gradual amelioration of the ecology, beginning with planting grass. Trees would have to wait until the gasses subsided, a new grassy ecosystem gained a foothold, and the soil had improved sufficiently.
Notwithstanding the many years since the landfills were last in use, the soil has remained poor, and that has impeded plant growth. Thirty-seven of Fu-de-keng's 98 hectares were used as a landfill until its closure in 1994. Though a lush carpet of grass now extends across its length and breadth, tree growth has been rather spotty. There are presently only 3800, and the survival rate for saplings is roughly 50%.
This is exactly the problem confronting the developers of the Shan-shui Ecological Park, located on the site of the old Shan-zhuku Landfill in Tai-pei. They've been trying to plant cherry trees and tung oil trees in accordance with the wishes of nearby residents, only to be thwarted at every turn. Only hardier indigenous varieties like the banyan, Chinese tallow, green maple, and golden rain tree have the requisite toughness to survive where the others have perished. In the meantime, the planners' vision of a scenic natural paradise may be difficult to attain.
The teeming city of Taipei has an expansive green oasis in Fudekeng Park in Muzha where people can race remote-control airplanes to their hearts' delight.