Tainan Travel

From the north, the wetland starts at the south of the Jianjun Fishing Harbor. In the east, it runs towards south along the west side of worksite No. 1 of the salt pan in the east of the Qigu Salt Plant. In the south, it borders the south levee of the Qigu Lagoon. In the west, it extends to the 6m depth contour in the waters. Totally, it occupies a total area of 2,997 hectares.

The total sun-drying area including the Qigu Lagoon and the east salt pan is 1,976 hectares, the largest in Taiwan. Developed during Japanese colonization, the Qigu salt pan was completely shut down in 2002. When the Binnan Industrial Park Development Project requested for turning the lagoon and the salt pan into a refinery and steelworks in 1993, local environmental protection groups teamed up to launch the wetland and black-faced spoonbill rescue movement. After evaluating the project for 13 years, the Regional Planning Commission of the Ministry of the Interiors returned the entire project to the Ministry of the Economic Affairs for the nonconformity of “actus reus”, thus preserving the wetland for the moment.

Ecological resources in the wetland cover endangered species: the black-faced spoonbill (Platalea minor), oriental stork (Ciconia boyciana) and peregrine falcon (Falco peregrinus); the rare and valuable species: the western marsh harrier (Circus aeruginosus), western osprey (Pandion haliaetus), common kestrel (Falco tinnunculus), little tern (Sternula albifrons), and Saunders’ gull (Chroicocephalus saundersi); and the conservation-deserving species: the oriental pratincole (Glareola maldivarum) and brown shrike (Lanius cristatus). Apart from the reproduction site for the Kentish plover (Charadrius alexandrinus) and black-winged stilt (Himantopus himantopus), the wetland has enough fish and shrimps for the black-faced spoonbill to spend winter in Taiwan.