An international conference on the issues facing the development and regeneration of rural areas was held in Taipei yesterday.
Academics, experts and practitioners from several countries shared experiences and exchanged views on the subject at the International Conference of Rural Regeneration.
Huang Ming-yao (黃明耀), director of the Council of Agriculture’s Soil and Water Conservation Bureau, said the Rural Regeneration Act (農村再生條例) was enacted in August last year in the hope of improving the quality of the working and living environments in rural areas through community planning.
Pierre Laconte, vice-chairman of the European Environmental Agency’s Scientific Committee, shared cases of modifying sustainable environments in the EU and said that energy conservation presents a challenge and it is important to consider both urban and rural needs.
He added that to introduce energy conserving urban and rural development, it was key to integrate a combination of landscape architecture, ecological engineering and restoration, as well as synergies between urban infrastructure and water management.
Masanori Azuma, a professor in Kogakuin University’s Engineering Department of Architecture in Japan, provided examples of rural remodeling in Japan and Taiwan, and proposed the idea of a combination of Japan’s farm-stay garden with Taiwan’s leisure farms.
Farm-stay gardens are distant rural villages located in the remote countryside, which provide long-term farming experiences for people who want to escape from busy city lives, Azuma said, adding that this type of rural land use allows visitors to be more aware of agricultural problems, food ingredient safety and ecological issues.
Jack Ahern, a professor at the University of Massachusetts’ Department of Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning, shared strategies for sustainability in rural planning from a physical planning perspective.
He stressed the importance of ecosystems, not only for their biological functions, but for their cultural and landscape roles.
Henning Bombeck, professor at the University of Rostock’s Development of Settlements and Rural Building Department in Germany, talked about ongoing problems in Germany’s rural areas, such as a declining population, an aging society and a limited infrastructure because of decreased tax revenues.
Bombeck said the solutions adopted in Germany included teaching rural residents to be friendly to tourists, building solar power plants and building farmers’ markets to attract urban consumers.
The speakers all agreed that interdisciplinary communication, as well as dialogue between rural and urban officials and residents, were crucial.
“Talk to the people, they have more than enough ideas to share,” Bombeck said.
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