There was uproar from all quarters following the Taipei City Government’s announcement that responsibility for the conservation of the city’s trees will be transferred from the Department of Cultural Affairs to the Public Works Department. However, the criticism should not be seen as a lack of trust in the officials of the Public Works Department to carry out their new role; rather it is a result of the conservation of trees not simply being a technical matter of trimming and transplantation.
Taipei’s Tree Conservation Act was conceived and brought about by former minister of culture Lung Ying-tai (龍應台) during her time as head of the Department of Cultural Affairs. The department’s remit broadly concerns conservation from the viewpoint of culture, landscape and ecology. Perhaps due to its work in the specific area of tree conservation, a number of development projects have suffered delay, though this will have been music to the ears of many conservation groups.
From tree conservation to neighborhood parks and entire garden cities, metropolitan ecological habitats raise a number of issues. Whether pastoral fields or inner-city gardens, in each case the answer is not to superficially engage in the planting of crops or plants, since this would simply be the shallow pursuit of a narrow utopian dream. One hopes that, during the course of industrialization and urbanization, the public will not sacrifice the rural environment on the altar of economic growth, but instead choose to preserve open stretches of countryside, where the water is clean and the air is pure — only then will Taiwan have achieved its vision of “ecological cities.”
Many mayors have expressed a wish to learn from — or even surpass — Singapore. Fifty years ago, founding father and former Singaporean president Lee Kuan Yew (李光耀) made the establishment of a “garden city” a national objective, hoping to change the appearance of the city-state and attract foreign investment. The second phase consisted of promoting green buildings and infrastructure; developing green spaces, public gardens, smaller neighborhood gardens and tree-lined boulevards; and even reservoirs, a green belt and a string of country parks.
Aside from their aesthetic appeal, these additional elements improved the “green lung” of the city. The planned third phase is to evolve Singapore into a “city within a garden,” thereby achieving Lee’s goal of a genuine garden city. Here, the term “garden” is not simply a description of ornamental green gardens, it also represents nature throughout the city.
Third-generation garden and green space design involves the fusion of ecological habitats and the restoration of multiple “life support systems.” It examines areas such as whether a city’s drainage system can incorporate a wildlife corridor and the adaption of traffic safety islands into mini-rainwater gardens to construct a citywide, landscaped pedestrian network.
As for the present talk of garden cities and tree conservation in Taiwan, if it turns out to be simply a papering over of the cracks without a set of clear and transparent green policies and organizational structures, blame will undoubtedly lie at the feet of the national parks administration and the Tourism Bureau. And yet, New York, Tokyo, Beijing, Paris — even Jakarta — all have a “city parks office” or “city gardens agency” or “parks and recreation office” that are able to conserve and use the resources of their parks and green spaces at a macro level.
To this day, Taiwan’s cities and counties lack a single organizational body responsible for parks and green spaces. Until the central government creates such a body, each local administration should take the initiative and forge ahead together, so it is good to support Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je’s (柯文哲 ) green policy.
After all, there is much Taipei can achieve if every public garden, green space, tree-lined street and ancient tree — even community farms and rooftop gardens — can, under the jurisdiction of a citywide ecological system, use safe layouts and be responsive to the nation’s aging society.
If Ko’s administration could do this, and also implement policy guidance and provide technical advice to assist non-governmental organizations and increase the responsibility of neighborhood and district leaders for the management of the ecological environment and social welfare, then Taipei can truly become a leader in green-city policy.
Monica Kuo is the chair of the Department of Landscape Architecture at Chinese Culture University.
Translated by Edward Jones
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