Wed, Sep 07, 2011 page3

• FEATURE: Land trusts protect where the government cannot

  • By Lee I-chia / Staff Reporter
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  On a narrow hiking trail surrounded by lush green leaves and flowers, insects of various colors and shapes can be spotted on trees, a spider about the size of a grown man’s fist hangs on a large web and brown grasshoppers swiftly spring to the side as people walk through the fallen leaves.

  At the height of summer, Natural Valley (自然谷) was cool enough that air conditioning seemed redundant.

  Wu Yu-chiao (吳語喬), co-owner of the 1.3 hectares of hillside forest, pointed to a moth caterpillar that immediately froze on the branch and told reporters: “It’s trying to camouflage [itself] as a limb because it sensed us getting close.”

  

  A student tour group hold hands while visiting the Nanheshan Natural Valley on the border of Hsinchu County’s Cyonglin and Hengshan townships on May 31.

  Photo courtesy of the Society of Wilderness

  Natural Valley, located in the hills of Hsinchu County’s Cyonglin Township (芎林), is Taiwan’s first legal environmental charitable trust — often referred to as an “environmental trust” in Taiwan — to be recognized by the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA).

  Environmental trusts “hand over” the environment to a reliable trustee to enforce purposeful and permanent management and share its benefits with the public.

  The owner of the entrusted property, in this case, the plot of land and its natural environment, appoints a trustworthy person or group to manage the property for the purpose of protecting the environment. After both sides have agreed to the purpose and how it is to be managed — such as protecting the natural environment and its indigenous plants and animals, or providing environmental education to the public — a trust agreement is signed.

  

  Environmental Protection Administration Minister Stephen Shen, third from left, holds a Society of Wilderness flag on June 24 during an inspection tour of the Nanheshan Natural Valley in Hsinchu County’s Cyonglin Township.

  Photo courtesy of the Society of Wilderness

  For the agreement to become valid, the trustee must obtain approval from the appropriate government authority, while the establishment of trust supervisors is also mandatory to oversee and ensure the proper management according to the contract.

  Nature Valley was entrusted to the Society of Wilderness by owners Wu Yu-chiao, Wu Je-fon (吳杰峰) and Liu Hsiu-mei (劉秀美) in June.

  Seven years ago, the trio came up with the idea of raising NT$6 million (US$206,000) to buy land to protect wildlife for future generations. They bought the land in July 2007 after years of searching for the ideal spot.

  “Look at England. Much of its environment was destroyed for industrial development, but after being protected by environmental trusts, some places became more beautiful than before, with flourishing forests and a rich ecosystem,” Wu Je-fon said, adding that Taiwan’s environment could be rehabilitated in a similar way.

  A National Trust Act was enacted in the British parliament in 1907, which entitled the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty to manage tenements of beauty or historic interest and lands for the preservation of their natural features and animal and plant life, for permanent preservation and the benefit of the nation. To date, more than 610,000 hectares of land, 31 natural reserves and various cases are managed by the National Trust, most of them in perpetuity.

  In England, Beatrix Potter (1866-1943), author and illustrator of the well-known children’s books The Tale of Peter Rabbit, entrusted more than 1,620 hectares of land and 14 farms in the Lake District, including her house at Hill Top — the inspiration for her stories — to the National Trust for permanent management. It is now open to the public.

  About 40km from Tokyo metropolitan area, Sayama — a lush hillside encompassing 3,500 hectares of forest and farmland, which was the inspiration for prominent manga artist and film director Hayao Miyazaki’s animation My Neighbor Totoro — faced the threat of destruction from an ever-growing urban jungle.

  With efforts from local environmental groups, the Totoro no Furusato (“The Homeland of Totoro”) Foundation was established in 1990, and donations were made by the public — more than 40 percent from students — to protect the area. Although much of the forestland was destroyed, nine small areas were preserved by the foundation for public use.

  “Using a charitable trust to protect the environment avoids problems; our children and future generations are allowed to change it [the agreement],” Wu Je-fon said.

  He also said that the mutual agreement would be automatically extended every three years as long as landowners have no objections to its content.

  “We are trying our best to preserve this place from development, and in fact the ecosystem is getting better here,” Wu Yu-chiao said.

  Thousands of indigenous trees, including indigenous cinnamon, Taiwan zelkova and Formosan michelia, were planted in the first year.

  In the case of Nature Valley, three individual supervisors and the EPA will ensure that the Society of Wilderness manages the area according to the agreement.

  Society of Wilderness conservation director Tony Chou (周東漢) said the organization and the Taiwan Environmental Information Association (TEIA) had been pushing for the legal authorization of environmental trust cases in Taiwan for many years, but had problems surmounting the issue of land ownership, changes to land use and a lack of interest by government authorities.

  In July last year, an environmental trust proposal was filed with the Ministry of Interior for authorization. Holding a long list of trust subscribers’ names, they told the ministry they wanted to buy the migration aisle for the Indo-Pacific humpback dolphin’s habitat from the government. The aisle is located near the Jhuoshuei River (濁水溪) estuary, just outside the planned construction site of a Kuokuang Petrochemical project.

  Their aim was to protect the endangered species.

  The plan was organized by several environmental groups including the Society of Wilderness and the TEIA, which asked people to sign a petition stating whether they agreed to donate NT$119 per square meter if the case were accepted by the government.

  The proposal was presented by environmental activist Tsai Chia-yang (蔡嘉陽), who at the time was the chairman of the Changhua Environmental Protection Union.

  The government was planning to sell the land to the proposed Kuokuang Petrochemical project for about NT$100 per square meter, so the activists wanted to show that they were willing to outbid the company.

  They gathered more than 1,400,000 pledges from more than 30,000 subscribers, amassing NT$160 million as of July — in just about four months — to buy the area.

  The area they planned to protect through the environmental trust was national land.

  “At that time, the Construction and Planning Administration didn’t designate the wetland as a wetland reserve, so we figured if the government wouldn’t designate it, then they should sell it to us,” Tsai said. “There weren’t specific regulations to guide how such a case should be dealt with and the land trade has always been a problem [in environmental trust proposals].”

  “There was also the problem of blurred division of authority in the government agencies. For example, species conservation should be the Council of Agriculture’s responsibility, while national land possession was in the hands of the interior ministry,” he said.

  The ministry eventually accepted its role as the relevant authority for the case and said the groups should first acquire national land transference approval from the National Property Administration.

  TEIA Environmental Trust Center director Sun Hsiu-Ju (孫秀如) said that because there was no definition or regulations for wetlands, they could apply to the Ministry of Economic Activities for a land change, but that the authority would not know what type of land to change it to, even if it agreed.

  Sun said the subscription of the 200 hectares for the dolphin aisle last year — the first phase of their environmental trust plan — was mainly meant as a means to stop the planned construction of the petrochemical plant.

  “Now the petrochemical plants won’t be in Changhua County, but there are other possibilities of development and destruction at the wetland, so the subscription will continue,” Sun said.

  The second phase includes a feeding habitat for water birds. They hope to receive more support to buy a total of 2,000 hectares collectively.

  Environmental trusts are a way for the public to protect the environment if they think civic groups can do better than the government, Sun said, adding that if the government were already protecting the environment, there would be no need for such trusts.

  Up to 70,000 active subscribers of the environmental trust could put pressure on the government and ensure that laws that need to be enacted, such as the drafted wetland act, which is awaiting review during the next legislative session, are implemented, she said.

  Chou said the organization plans to open the area to the public in December.
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