Dozens of children, accompanied by conservationists, presented tree saplings (
Dressed in traditional clothes, Han and Atayal tribe (
PHOTO: CHEN CHENG-CHANG, TAIPEI TIMES
The children later walked to the Presidential Office to present saplings to the president, but Chen was unable to meet with the group because he was in southern Taiwan. As the children sang Christmas songs, the saplings were accepted by Kuo Yao-chi (郭瑤琪), director of the Department of Public Affairs of the Presidential Office.
Activists who accompanied the children called for the establishment of Chilan Mountain National Park, saying that Christmas Day especially was an appropriate day to appreciate one of the gifts given by the God to Taiwanese people -- the only extensive and homogenous Taiwanese red and yellow cypress (
Conservationists urged the government to establish a national park on Chilan Mountain based on a new concept, which combines aboriginal culture with Western forest management.
Activists said they have learned from their efforts over the past few years that forest-related problems will not be solved until Aborigines can live in mountainous areas.
The controversy over the establishment of Chilan Mountain National Park emerged several years ago when environmentalists grew upset with what they called the government's "ironic forestry policy," so deemed because Taiwan's Forest Protection Department once supported logging. The government believed that the more logging there was, the richer the country would be. Activists, therefore, called for the preservation of trees, claiming that the government had logged 44 million cubic meters of trees from 1945 to 1989.
According to conservationists, due to the lack of balance between timber harvesting and protection of ecosystems, the Forest Protection Department under the Vocational Assistance Commission for Retired Servicemen (退輔會) had logged 6,000 hectares of red and yellow cypress trees over the past 30 years in the Chilan Mountain region, the location of the sources of water supplies to half of Taiwan's population.
Under pressure from environmentalists, a ban on logging in mountain areas was announced officially in 1989. But by then many Aborigines had been forced to relocate and leave their traditional place of residence.
Just this week Aboriginal groups joined together with environmentalists to express their support for the establishment of a national park at Chilan Mountain. They suggested the park be called Magou Mountain (馬告山) in the Atayal language, stressing that the process of planning a national park should include opinions from Aboriginal and other local residents.
Other Aboriginal groups, however, are opposed to the idea. They said that the National Park Act is in need of revision. Existing laws prohibit individuals from entering some areas in national parks.
Some Aboriginal people said at a public hearing at the Legislative Yuan early this month that, as long as they were allowed to enter the park freely, they did not mind the government managing the forests.
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