More than a century ago, the British naturalist Charles Darwin observed 57 small saplings grow out of 210 grams of mud within a six-month period. In 2000 in Taiwan, 765 saplings of 43 species grew out of 1m2 of soil obtained from Wushihkeng, located 1,200m above sea level, by the Taiwan Endemic Species Research Institute (TESRI) of the Council of Agriculture.
Another experiment conducted by Providence University's Chen Yu-feng (
A recent TESRI study of Peak 99 (
All this is evidence that Taiwan's soil contains a boundless potential to support life.
In fact, denuded topsoil can grow into lush secondary forests within a few decades at low altitudes and between 20 and 30 years at medium altitudes.
Conservation groups have argued that there is no need for people to plant trees because Mother Earth does it better.
However, one must remember the argument about "man shall conquer the heavens" and the thinking of the logging and forestry industries, as well as long-standing superstition about forestation.
Despite their engagement in large-scale logging in virgin forests over the last 50 years, Taiwan's forestry authorities in 1965 said that the nation's natural broadleaf forests were useless. So they carried out a 20-year-long "forest stand transformation" campaign, which turned Taiwan's precious natural forests into monocultural, artificial forests.
Government reforestation projects covered more than 1.13 million hectares, almost one-third of Taiwan's entire area.
In 1996, Typhoon Herb unleashed massive landslides -- an indication that soil stability throughout Taiwan was on the verge of collapse. Afterwards, the government launched a "forestation by all the people" project. After Typhoon Toraji last year, the Executive Yuan once again vowed to "secure Taiwan's soil with tree roots."
But the reality, whether one grows endemic or foreign plants, is that reforestation on collapsed land involves further destablization of topsoil and removes grasses and trees that have naturally sprouted there, thereby hindering the natural regeneration process.
All the public forestation efforts in the past have involved cutting down the naturally growing secondary or virgin forests and replacing them with artificial ones.
In Ilan County, thanks to the efforts of conservationists, the cypress forests of Chilan were incorporated into a new national park before they could be trimmed by the Forest Protection Department of the Vocational Assistance Commission for Retired Servicemen. That department had planned to turn the cypress forests into monocultural forests. It was a backward and absurd plan by anyone's reckoning.
For many years, "forestation" has been a shield against criticism for those in power, who have used the policy to deceive people into believing that it can prevent the disaster that is facing Taiwan's soil.
This so-called "forestation" is in fact an extension of the "forest stand transformation" program and is simply a recipe for disaster. Continued forestation will not stop Taiwan's increasingly serious droughts.
Li Ken-cheng is director of the ecological education center of the National Teachers' Association.
Translated by Francis Huang
Could Asia be on the verge of a new wave of nuclear proliferation? A look back at the early history of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which recently celebrated its 75th anniversary, illuminates some reasons for concern in the Indo-Pacific today. US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin recently described NATO as “the most powerful and successful alliance in history,” but the organization’s early years were not without challenges. At its inception, the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty marked a sea change in American strategic thinking. The United States had been intent on withdrawing from Europe in the years following
My wife and I spent the week in the interior of Taiwan where Shuyuan spent her childhood. In that town there is a street that functions as an open farmer’s market. Walk along that street, as Shuyuan did yesterday, and it is next to impossible to come home empty-handed. Some mangoes that looked vaguely like others we had seen around here ended up on our table. Shuyuan told how she had bought them from a little old farmer woman from the countryside who said the mangoes were from a very old tree she had on her property. The big surprise
The issue of China’s overcapacity has drawn greater global attention recently, with US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen urging Beijing to address its excess production in key industries during her visit to China last week. Meanwhile in Brussels, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen last week said that Europe must have a tough talk with China on its perceived overcapacity and unfair trade practices. The remarks by Yellen and Von der Leyen come as China’s economy is undergoing a painful transition. Beijing is trying to steer the world’s second-largest economy out of a COVID-19 slump, the property crisis and
The past few months have seen tremendous strides in India’s journey to develop a vibrant semiconductor and electronics ecosystem. The nation’s established prowess in information technology (IT) has earned it much-needed revenue and prestige across the globe. Now, through the convergence of engineering talent, supportive government policies, an expanding market and technologically adaptive entrepreneurship, India is striving to become part of global electronics and semiconductor supply chains. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Vision of “Make in India” and “Design in India” has been the guiding force behind the government’s incentive schemes that span skilling, design, fabrication, assembly, testing and packaging, and