The introduction of the Satoyama Initiative to Kaohsiung’s Meinong District (美濃) has seen incredible success and proved that a win-win situation is achievable in terms of agricultural production while protecting the environment, Kaohsiung Bureau of Agriculture officials said.
“Satoyama” is a Japanese term applied to a border zone or area between mountain foothills and arable flat land and can be defined as an entire landscape used for agriculture, containing a mosaic of mixed forests, rice paddy fields, dry rice fields, grasslands and various bodies of water.
Meinong has long been a key agricultural production area in the region, while offering Kaohsiung residents the beautiful scenery of rural villages, farmland and rivers.
Photo: Chen Wen-chan, Taipei Times
Bureau officials said Meinong residents voted to implement the Satoyama Iniative and that the bureau is conducting a biodiversity inspection in the Meinong area — the first of its kind in the nation.
Officials said the inspection is expected to take six to 12 months to complete, adding that it is concentrating its efforts on the district’s rice paddies, wild lotus and mixed grains.
Although only two months into the general inspection, bureau officials said they have already discovered the presence of painted snipe, a creature listed as a class-two protected species, adding that the rice paddies are also home to the rarely seen Onychothemis testacea tonkinensis, a species of dragonfly that usually makes its home midstream or downstream in clean rivers.
Officials said they also found another class-two protected species, the black-winged kite, and a class-three protected species, the Oriental pratincole, in the cornfields, with the former hunting Arvicolinae for food and the latter feeding off insects.
Of note is the change in focus of the inspection area, which is usually centered on woodlands, the bureau said, adding that most of the newly discovered animals had appeared in fields, which helps to analyze in greater detail types of produce grown and fields that adopt organic farming.
There is evidence to suggest that eco-friendly farming is safest, both for the produce grown and for the ecology, the bureau said, adding that it has contributed to creating environmentally friendly farming.
“The bureau plans to produce data on the habitats of animals in the changing landscape around Meinong’s farms,” bureau official Lin Chih-hsien (林志嫺) said.
The bureau also plans to publish a book examining how the district has successfully combined ecological conservation with agricultural activity, Lin added.
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
The High Prosecutors’ Office yesterday withdrew an appeal against the acquittal of a former bank manager 22 years after his death, marking Taiwan’s first instance of prosecutors rendering posthumous justice to a wrongfully convicted defendant. Chu Ching-en (諸慶恩) — formerly a manager at the Taipei branch of BNP Paribas — was in 1999 accused by Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾), then-president of Chia Her Industrial Co, of forging a request for a fixed deposit of US$10 million by I-Hwa Industrial Co, a subsidiary of Chia Her, which was used as collateral. Chu was ruled not guilty in the first trial, but was found guilty
A wild live dugong was found in Taiwan for the first time in 88 years, after it was accidentally caught by a fisher’s net on Tuesday in Yilan County’s Fenniaolin (粉鳥林). This is the first sighting of the species in Taiwan since 1937, having already been considered “extinct” in the country and considered as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. A fisher surnamed Chen (陳) went to Fenniaolin to collect the fish in his netting, but instead caught a 3m long, 500kg dugong. The fisher released the animal back into the wild, not realizing it was an endangered species at
DEADLOCK: As the commission is unable to forum a quorum to review license renewal applications, the channel operators are not at fault and can air past their license date The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday said that the Public Television Service (PTS) and 36 other television and radio broadcasters could continue airing, despite the commission’s inability to meet a quorum to review their license renewal applications. The licenses of PTS and the other channels are set to expire between this month and June. The National Communications Commission Organization Act (國家通訊傳播委員會組織法) stipulates that the commission must meet the mandated quorum of four to hold a valid meeting. The seven-member commission currently has only three commissioners. “We have informed the channel operators of the progress we have made in reviewing their license renewal applications, and