Lalashan (拉拉山) is to become a national forest recreation area, the Forestry Bureau has said.
Bureau Director-General Lin Hwa-ching (林華慶) said the mountain, which is at the border of Taoyuan and New Taipei City, and is known for a nature reserve that includes a forest of old giant trees, would receive the designation in the second quarter of this year.
It would become Taiwan’s 19th national forest recreation area, Lin added.
Photo: Lee Jung-ping, Taipei Times
The bureau, which manages 1.62 million hectares of state-owned forest, said the aim of creating national forest recreation areas is to bring people closer to nature.
In 1986, Lalashan was designated as a nature reserve, called the Takuanshan Forest Reserve (達觀山自然保護區), and opened to visitors after academics found a cluster of ancient indigenous cypress trees on the mountain, the bureau said.
Since then, the Lalashan Giant Tree cluster, at about 1,500m above sea level at the border of Taoyuan’s Fusing District (復興) and New Taipei City’s Wulai District (烏來), has attracted 170,000 to 180,000 visitors each year, the bureau said.
Shia Jung-sheng (夏榮生), head of the bureau’s Hsinchu Forest District Office, which oversees the Lalashan nature reserve, lauded the protected area as having a rich ecosystem that includes a number of giant hinoki and meniki cypress trees that are more than 2,000 years old.
It is also home to many protected animals, such as the Taiwanese black bear, wild goat, crab-eating mongoose, Formosan yellow-throated marten and Taiwan salamander, Shia said.
Since 2016, the bureau has been preparing to turn the Takuanshan Forest Reserve into a national forest recreation area.
The nature reserve includes an 81.59-hectare cloud forest belt at 1,400m to 1,900m above sea level, Shia said, adding that the belt is popular among visitors as it offers beautiful vistas in the afternoon.
Accessible via a 3km wooden plank trail, the belt features one meniki cypress and 23 ancient hinoki cypress trees, he said.
Another attraction in the area is the 17km Fuba Cross-ridge Historic Trail (福巴越嶺古道), which straddles Fushan (福山) in Wulai and Baling (巴陵) in Fusing, featuring magnificent views along the way, Shia said.
The area is home to Atayal communities who used the ancient trail as a vital transportation route between villages.
Once Lalashan becomes a national forest recreation area, a tourist center would be set up there to provide information for visitors, Shia said, adding that he hopes the center will enable them to better appreciate the local landscape, ecology and culture.
The bureau has over the past two years been training community members as guides, improving the quality of environmentally friendly hotels near the mountain and bolstering transportation in the area, Shia added.
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