The heat of summer is upon us, and the cicadas are chirping. This is just the right time to relax and keep cool by lying low and taking it easy. Who would have guessed that so many incidents would arise this year, including SARS and the referendum debate? No sooner had the TV series Taiwan Thunderbolt (
Leisure and relaxation are not laziness but rather an appreciation of taste and quality in life. While there is life, there is hope, and life should not be just frenetic anxiety. As night follows day and the moon waxes and wanes, tension in life should be followed by release, and leisure time is an integral part of that process. After one accepts this idea, relaxation-time can be seen as a necessity and not a luxury. In other words, the recreation industry should enjoy all the preferential treatment the government currently bestows on other industries under our capitalist system.
Where can one go to relax? The government has worked for many years to develop recreational activities in the agricultural and fishing sectors, but years of adherence to the principles of "production, conservation and lifestyle" has turned farmers and fishermen into tools of production with little quality of life.
The critical task at hand is to find a way to highlight the quality of life and distinctive lifestyles enjoyed by farmers and fisherman. If we focus only on income and don't emphasize their health, happiness and the meaning they find in life by interacting with the larger environment, then the whole recreational farming and fishing industry will develop in the wrong direction.
A lifestyle can't be represented by a dollar figure. It is manifested in happiness and service quality. If those in power can't make the creators of financial policy understand this fact and personally experience what quality of life means and if they continue to take money or volume of material possessions as their standard for making judgements, then there will arise an enormous conflict between profit and quality of life. Moreover, the values of farmers and fishermen will also be guided in the wrong direction.
The most basic thing is to stop thinking that making money is the primary goal and focus on life. People farm and cultivate the Earth in order to live. If we aren't greedy, we won't harm the Earth's ecosystem and we can have a happy life, concern for the environment and hope for a sustainable future. Only in this way can a balance between production, conservation and lifestyle be achieved.
Comprehensive environmental protection measures are the real basis for sustainability.
How should the agriculture and fishing industries develop? These industries are necessary to sustain existence and our way of life, but they should be green and sustainable. On the basis of this idea, we can create a concept of agriculture as a "backyard garden" where urban dwellers can relax and experience nature.
Most agricultural and fishing areas are relatively close to nature. Take Kinmen as an example. By means of landscaping, agricultural areas can become scenic attractions. In Taiwan, mustard seeds are scattered in the wintertime, covering the earth with a blanket of yellow. If Kinmen used the same technique, it would be just a ludicrous imitation, but Kinmen has wheat and sorghum, both of which Taiwan lacks. By means of landscaping, wheat and sorghum could be planted in predetermined patterns so that from a high vantage point, a striking image would become visible. The crops could also be planted in the form of a maze -- which would attract visitors -- and the stalks of the wheat and sorghum plants could be made into handicrafts.
In this way, by means of a contract system, the farmers' planting could be directed. Apart from maintaining farming culture, it would have the effect of promoting landscaping. A different pattern of planting every year could attract large numbers of tourists year after year.
When farming and fishing are no longer done to provide needed food but instead to provide visitors an opportunity to appreciate wildlife by means of protecting natural habitats, then a leisure-oriented farming and fishing industry will be one form of ecotourism. Ecotourism is a kind of human behavior, it is a demonstration of culture in which landowners and visitors act to show their concern for the Earth. In terms of development, we must keep in mind that the larger goal of "improving the quality of the people and establishing paradise here on earth" is the true selling point of ecotourism and the strategy by which local communities can maintain their livelihood.
When farmers and fishermen provide recreation activities for tourists, they should provide an experience that is tasteful and high-class. If it is still just another form of hedonistic eating, frolicking and consuming material goods, and doesn't involve looking inward, reflection, or thoughtful cultivation of one's own refinement, then that will be development in the wrong direction.
Farming and fishing communities have always been part of a system of mutual aid. Rice, fruit, fish and shrimp are all products of the larger environment. Although they require very different production techniques, they are all dependant on the larger environment. Even more importantly, a group of people who rely on the environment for their livelihood should cooperate and interact with one another as much as possible. This is the only viable survival strategy for humanity.
People must cooperate with each other, with other forms of life, and with the larger environment in order to achieve sustainability. We often say, "rest enables one to walk even further." Now we should emphasize all the more that, "rest enables one to live better."
Chen Chang-po is a research fellow in the Institute of Zoology at Academia Sinica and a member of the Taipei Society.
Translated by Ethan Harkness
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