Being the regional center to assist the seven cities and counties in the Southern Taiwan to manage their river watch program, the River Restoration Center of Chang Jung Christian University promotes experience exchange among counties and cities, through on-site visits and consultations, as well as hosting workshop of public participation on watershed management. The center also conducts training course and seed-teacher workshop to assist local EPB to equip river watch volunteers with needed knowledge and skill. In order to integrate the local voices to the decision process of watershed management, the River Restoration Center also held three watershed public participation meetings for Erren River and ChiShui River, both are listed as the Priority River to be remediated. The conclusions of the watershed meetings are presented to the EPA-hosted Executive Meetings of River Pollution Cleanup Projects. To encourage the participation and recognize the long-term contribution, this project hosts the Southern Taiwan River Watch Commendation Conference. This year, the Southern Region Project is also responsible to modify the performance evaluation index of the management of River Watch program for local EPB and of the National Excellent River Watch Team. The project has completed all the above tasks, including EPB visitings, public participation meetings (with total particpants of 103), a training course (with total particpants of 52), a seed-teacher workshop (with total particpants of 41), and the performance evaluation index. To assist the program of water environment volunteer in both EPB and group leader levels, the project has compiled a ‘Water Environment Watcher Management Guidelines’ and a ‘Running a Water Environment Volunteer Group Guidelines’. The project also held three panel discussions for the 108 Excellent Water Watch Team (with total particpants of 124). An interview was made to a female role model and her story was written. The River Restoration Center has been continuedly operated to assist the communication among stakeholders, including NGOs and government agencies. In order to further strengthen the willingness of the public participation in the future, we suggest: (1) further extension of River Water Program to establish a comprehensive, strong public network for river protection, (2) involving the public forces in every pollution control measures, including recycling of treated swine wastewater to agriculture field as fertilizer, as well as adoption of water purification facilities for environmental education, (3) involving public voice in watershed management meetings, especially for the priority rivers, (4) holding river watch convention to increase the visibility and experience exchange among the river watch teams in the Southern Region.

Public Participation, River Pollution Cleanup, River Watch,Environmental Education for the Aquatic Environment