To restore the forests ruined by decades of illegal logging, a Rukai Aborigine named Sula has spent more than two decades planting more than 10,000 trees in in Pingtung County’s Wutai Township (霧臺), earning him the title of “the man planting trees.”
“Only when there are trees can we become open-minded and compose ourselves in daily life,” said Sula, 52, also known as Sung Wen-sheng (宋文生), who has restored more than 100 hectares of forest.
That statement, originally made by his father, compelled him to quit his job as a police officer when he was 23 to follow in his father’s footsteps in guarding the forests in Wutai.
To familiarize himself with regulations governing forests, Sula studied for the Forestry Bureau’s forest ranger exam. Sung passed the exam, but soon quit the job to guard the forest in his own way.
Over the years, he has also bought private land to stop its commercial development.
His restoration efforts have largely targeted an area on Damumushan (大姆姆山) called Dabalilan, which was used by the Rukai for hunting and farming for generations.
Dabalilan means “the place where the rainbow appears” in the Rukai language.
Located on the southern side of the mountain at an altitude between 300m to 1,200m, Dabalilan once had abundant natural resources and wildlife, but timber poachers gradually stripped the area of its trees.
As many loggers employed local Aborigines as their guides in the mountains, Sula had to fight with community members to protect the forests, a conflict that had gone on since his father’s generation. However, he believed that one day he would earn the full support of the community.
Following the advice of Rukai elders, Sula planted indigenous trees such as ring-cupped oaks, Formosan gum, Taiwan zelkovas, large-leaved nanmus, Chinese pistache and Chinese soap berries, which help attracted wildlife back to the area.
While Sula has focused on the forest, his family has largely been supported by his wife’s income from a breakfast store.
After his wife, Dresedrese, had their first child, Sula wanted to give up his efforts to restore the forest and find a salaried job, but a sense of mission drove him to continue.
As his efforts became better known, people began signing up to “adopt” a tree in the area and pay him to take care of their tree. More than 200 people have since adopted seedlings, paying him NT$1,200 per year per tree.
Sula makes a daily hour-and-a-half drive up the mountain to tend to his seedlings. He hopes that he will be able to restore the forests of Dabalilan, which once covered about 600 hectares, to their former glory in his lifetime, Sula said.
Only when he restores the forests can he truly protect his loved ones, he said.
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