Experiencing nature in person is the first step toward building concepts of ecological conservation, Taiwanese delegates to the UN World Summit on Sustainable Development said yesterday.
On Tuesday afternoon, Environmental Protection Administrator Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌), Deputy Director of the forestry department under the Council of Agriculture Tang Hsiao-yu (湯曉虞) and professors discussed conservation issues with representatives from the Wilderness Foundation, the South Africa branch of the international WILD Foundation, to strengthen relations.
In the past two years, the Wilderness Foundation has received US$20,000 from the Taiwanese government.
The Council of Agriculture established a fund seven years ago to promote international collaboration on conservation. The council allocated US$700,000 annually to fund more than 20 international groups.
Wilderness Foundation president Ian Player expressed his willingness to work with Taiwan to carry out a multi-faceted wilderness program including social initiatives, public policy and advocacy as well as experiential education and training.
Player got the idea to establish the foundation decades ago based on a basic belief -- that wilderness is the foundation upon which our society exists.
Activists believe that wild areas must be protected, sustained and championed in order to ensure that residents do not lose this foundation.
Years later, the South African activists succeeded in protecting Lake St Lucia from mining. The lake was transformed into the nation's first World Heritage Site.
The foundation's conservationists work with volunteers and professionals from all sectors -- the public, politics, business, academia and the arts -- to coordinate and concentrate energies on key, strategic struggles to save wilderness for the well-being of all people now and in the future.
Martin Vance, president of the US-based WILD Foundation, also showed his resolve to strengthen ties between WILD and preservationists in Taiwan.
Player, meanwhile, said that some of the foundation's programs allow government officials and even legislators to experience the beauty of nature in local preserves in a bid to inspire their ecological awareness.
As the ecology of Taiwan's Central Range is quite different than that in South Africa, conservationists in Johannesburg said they hope to experience Taiwan in person someday.
"Taiwan can be benefit from bilateral collaboration projects on the promotion of ecological conservation like the one with an NGO in South Africa," said Lee Ling-ling (李玲玲), a zoology professor at National Taiwan University.
In addition, Lee said, if appropriate partnerships could be built between governments, NGOs and civil society, the promotion of conservation would be enhanced.
Eric Liou (
RSS