While shouting Lishan, while putting waste │ in the countryside, the calm countryside caused waves, and Matoushan was built as a landfill.

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At the junction of Qishan, Neimen, and Tianliao in Kaohsiung, there is an independent mountain, which is called Matou Mountain because it looks like a horse. It is the belief center of local farmers, known as "General White Horse."

In June 2015, a 28.7-hectare valley on the east side of Matou Mountain was developed as a Class B landfill by waste disposal company Fujun. All of a sudden, the current situation of faults in Matoushan area, whether there is groundwater in the geology of the bad environment, whether the water source is likely to be polluted, and how great is the impact of the landfill on the ecological environment? In becoming the focus of social attention, including Chen Yuyi, a leading academic in the ecological circle, Liu Fengchang, a world-renowned scholar of land crabs, Wang Xiaodi and Ke Yizheng, famous directors Wang Xiaodi and Ke Yizheng, all openly appeal that Matou Mountain contains rich ecology and should not be developed rashly.

However, residents living in Matou Mountain are most worried that when the overall ecology is threatened, the farming environment is polluted, the agricultural culture accumulated in the past is unsustainable, and the way of life is disturbed, not to mention the future rural development. So do farmers still have a chance to live and work in Matou Mountain?

Xue Mei (left), 76, lives next to the landfill site. If the future development plan is approved, her family's courtyard is only a wall away from the landfill site. For Xue Mei, farming is the meaning of life, and it was not until the landfill development project that she realized that she might lose her job in agriculture for the rest of her life.

Agriculture is not just a job, but a way of life (Photography / Li Huiyi)

The development case of Class B industrial waste landfill of Fujun Company has entered the stage of the EIA conference. At 2: 00 p.m. on March 2, the Kaohsiung Environmental Protection Bureau will continue to convene an EIA review committee. As the current pros and cons of the landfill site are mainly focused on "the fault situation in the present site,"whether there is groundwater in the bad land geology," and "is it possible that the groundwater is polluted?" and "how great is the impact of the landfill on the ecological environment", but for the farmers guarding the Ma Yungong every day, the possible impact of the landfill on the environment is not just the experiment and analysis of scientific data.

Farmers are worried that when the overall ecology is threatened and the farming environment is polluted, the agricultural culture accumulated in the past will be unsustainable, and the future rural development will stagnate or even disappear, so will farmers still have a chance to live and work in Matou Mountain?

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