Diane Wilson, author of An Unreasonable Woman, which chronicles her David vs. Goliath battle with Formosa Plastics Group in Calhoun County, Texas, was in Taipei on June 25th, 2010 to help present the Black Planet Award to CEO Lee Chih-Tsuen and the founding family of Wang Yung-Ching.
Diane Wilson speaks to reporters shortly before green shareholders and stakeholders entered the Formosa Plastics Corporation Annual Shareholders Meeting in Taipei in an attempt to present Formosa with the Black Planet Award.
The Black Planet Award 2009 was bestowed on FPG by the ethecon—Foundation Ethics and Economics, an organization based in Germany—for FPG’s egregious social and ecological damage of global dimensions. The Wang family is among the richest in the world with assets estimated at more than USD 70 billion. Although there have been repeated demonstrations against FPG in Taiwan and elsewhere around the world, these pleas for a change in their attitude of seeming disregard for humans and the environment have fallen largely on deaf ears.
In order to gain access to the FPG board meeting, individuals including those who have been victims of FPG's horrendous environmental practices have bought shares in the company. This group of individuals has been called the small green shareholders. However, their attempt at entering the meeting hall and presenting the award—an oil-stained globe—to the senior executives of FPG was foiled by security guards who barred their entry. After a bit of pushing, shoving and shouting, in protest Wilson and members of this entourage sat down in the hall and refused to leave. They were forcibly removed after about 30 minutes.
Diane Wilson, herself a Blue Planet Award recipient in 2006 for her courageous, decades-long fight against FPG over the pollution of the species-rich habitat in the Gulf of Mexico, led the group of more than 20 representatives of other Taiwan and U.S. environmental organizations. They include the Wild at Heart Legal Defense Association, Green Party Taiwan, Green Formosa Front, Mercy on the Earth Taiwan, Yunlin County Shallow Waters Aqua-culture Association, Taiwan Environmental Action Network, Taiwan Academy of Ecology Taipei Branch, Changhua Environmental Protection Union, the Calhoun County Resource Watch, and Injured Workers United.
Link to video of Diane et al at the board meeting.
Further information about three recent fires at FPG and its affiliates can be found here.