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10,000 mysteries, no clear solution

By David Momphard
STAFF REPORTER
Saturday, Sep 13, 2003, Page 16

Paved and landscaped trails make getting back to nature not unlike walking down the boulevard. PHOTO: DAVID MOMPHARD, TAIPEI TIMES

Auwanta (奧萬大) might translate to "10,000 great mysteries" but the newest mystery is why no one comes here. The Nantou County recreation area built by the Forestry Bureau and opened to the public in 1994 is famous for its grove of maple trees and a series of stunning waterfalls along Naoliao Creek.

In the five years following its opening, it saw an influx of over a million visitors, most of them coming in winter to see the maple leaves change color and blanket the forest floor in shades of yellow and red.

Then, after the earthquake of September 1999, the number of visitors fell precipitously. Before the quake, Auwanta was on track to have hosted half a million people by year's end. The following year, with the road leading to the recreation area largely impassable, it had only one-fifth that number. By last year, attendance had increased modestly to some 158,000, but this year has seen less than one-third that many.

"SARS affected us greatly," said Jian Yi-chang (簡益章), deputy director of the Forestry Bureau. "Of course there weren't any cases [of the illness] in Auwanta, but no one was going to get on a train or on a bus and risk getting infected."

Paved and landscaped trails make getting back to nature not unlike walking down the boulevard. PHOTO: DAVID MOMPHARD, TAIPEI TIMES

The shrinking number of tourists has meant a decrease in the number of staff working at the recreation area. In its heyday, Auwanta employed 26 people who greeted visitors at the gate, checked them into their rooms or cabins, fed them and maintained the facilities for their enjoyment. Now only half the staff remain.

Information signs tagged to trees,tell visitors about the flora and even how to pronounce it. PHOTO: DAVID MOMPHARD, TAIPEI TIMES

To improve the situation, Jian and the Forestry Bureau plan to build a hot-springs hotel on a bluff overlooking the Wanta River and its watershed basin. The hotel will have over 400 rooms and be constructed on the build-operate-transfer model, meaning a private contractor will be responsible for establishing the facility and maintaining it for an agreed-upon period before turning it over to the Forestry Bureau. The hot springs in question would actually be piped into the hotel from its location at the confluence of the North and South Wanta Rivers, hundreds of meters below where the hotel is to be built.

A local man enjoys a bit of illegal fishing on Naoliao Creek in the Auwanta Recreation Area, Nantou County. PHOTO: DAVID MOMPHARD, TAIPEI TIMES

It's a proven method for increasing the numbers of tourists as several other locations in Taiwan have shown; Peitou, Chihpen, and Green Island being only a few examples where hot springs have served as a kind of fountain of youth for maintaining a healthy tourism industry. The Forestry Bureau will begin accepting bids from contractors later this month and hope to start construction by the end of the year.

SARS affected us greatly. ... Of course there weren't any cases [of the illness] in Auwanta, but no one was going to get on a train or on a bus and risk getting infected." -- Jian Yi-chang, deputy director of the Forestry Bureau

The problem with the plan is that it further develops an area that was originally built as a nature retreat. Already, more than a dozen buildings have been erected on the site, including an administration center, a restaurant, several hostels and cabins, housing for the staff and offices for the Forestry Bureau. There are also enough parking spaces to accommodate a thousand cars. Even the natural attractions that were the original reason for establishing the recreation area -- the maple grove, waterfalls, a pine grove and bird-watching area -- are reached by walking along paved trails and climbing mountains via wooden staircases. Restrooms and pagodas also dot the landscape.

Jian, who planned all these facilities and is leading the charge to build the hot-springs hotel, admits that it will detract from the natural setting that inspired it, but maintains that development is necessary to meet the demands of the tourism industry.

"Hot-springs culture is very popular in Taiwan. People already know the springs exist here but that they're inaccessible. Building the hotel will bring back a lot of people who used come and bring in many more new visitors," he said, adding that Auwanta was designated as a recreation area, not a nature reserve, and that development was inevitable.

Of course, development is nothing new to Auwanta. One of the first things you notice when driving into the area are the aqueducts, reservoirs, settling ponds and pump stations that move water from the Wanta River and its tributaries into the massive Wanta reservoir in the adjacent valley. The waterworks were first built by the Japanese in the years they colonized Taiwan then re-built and expanded by the KMT government starting in the early 1950s. The reservoir provides water for residents of Nantou and Taichung counties and a hydroelectric operation provides power to residents of Taitung.

In Auwanta, the canals and pump station strangely manage to blend in with the environment given the amount of cement that's been poured to pave the trails running alongside them. Nonetheless, they serve as a reminder that what was once pristine nature has long since been co-opted as a natural resource.

Only now, with plans to build a hot-springs hotel nearing completion, are environmentalists and visitors to Auwanta waking up to the notion that development does not necessarily mean improvement. "It's a beautiful place," said one weekday visitor surnamed Fang, "but it doesn't really feel like getting back to nature,'" she said, referring to one of the Forestry Bureau's pamphlets she was carrying.

Even members of the bureau hint that further development might not be a long-term solution. Like Jian, Forestry Bureau administrator Wang Yu-ching (王怡靖) cites the 1999 earthquake and SARS as having greatly reduced the number of visitors to Auwanta, but suggests that the numbers would have leveled off regardless. "Auwanta had a lot of publicity its first few years ? most anyone who was interested in coming here has," she said. "If we build [the hot-springs hotel], it will certainly bring in people again for a while," she said. "But after a while?"

If you'd like to visit Auwanta, you can make a reservation by calling the recreation area's administrative office at (04) 9297 4511. Auwanta is a two-hour drive outside Taichung and an hour from Puli in Nantou County. A bus runs once a day between the Puli bus station and the recreation area.
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