Ecological concerns have arisen because part of the military's 202 Arsenal was designated as the site of a national biotechnology park project. The dispute reached a climax when writer Chang Hsiao-feng recently contributed an article to a local newspaper calling on President Ma Ying-jeou to drop the project so as to conserve the wetlands at the arsenal, which she called Taipei's 'second lung.' She even went down on her knees to beg Ma to spare the land on Monday, after Ma had inspected the site and determined that the project will not endanger the wetlands. Our question is: Is there no way to strike a balance between ecological conservation and economic development? The project will only occupy 9.6 hectares of the 185-hectare military property. In other words, the development area has been minimized to maximize the property's ecological integrity. The environmentalists' next move should be to monitor the government, which has promised to ensure the sustainability of the area. If the ecological system is the lungs, economic development is the stomach. The two should not be seen as having a zero sum relationship. (May 11, 2010) 