The Taiwan Forestry Research Institute collaborated with award-winning Australian photographer Steven Pearce to photograph Taiwan’s tallest tree, the Heaven Sword of Daan River (大安溪倚天劍), in its full height at an event yesterday.
The Heaven Sword, an 84.1m-tall Cryptomeria-like Taiwania located around the head of the Daan River, was identified in 2023 by the research team Taiwan Champion Trees using light detection and ranging (LiDAR) imaging.
Photo: CNA
Pearce has been working with his wife, epiphyte researcher Jennifer Sanger, on forest conservation since 2012.
Photo courtesy of the Taiwan Forestry Research Institute
They have been to New Zealand, the US Pacific Northwest, California and Panama, as well as Taiwan to research canopies and photograph giant trees.
It is the third time he has been to Taiwan, Pearce told a news conference, adding that he felt honored to have been invited on the team to see the nation’s giant trees firsthand.
The Heaven Sword is “the international tree expedition of the year,” as Taiwan Champion Trees is unique in its effort to gather a team of experts and embark on “such a big journey to see one tree,” he said.
“We don’t have the same respect for our trees in Tasmania and it’s a long journey that me and my wife and our group of friends have been out for many years to try and get the giant trees in Tasmania protected,” Pearce said.
“Advocating and pushing for giant trees has become a special icon of my home [Tasmania, Australia] ... and it’s amazing for it to be happening here in Taiwan,” he said.
“This was the most difficult tree trip I have ever been on,” Pearce said, adding that the forests and scenery he saw in Taiwan was “equivalent to anywhere in the world.”
The photographic equipment used to photograph the Heaven Sword was a simple camera that can be bought from a regular shop in Taiwan, he said.
The method was to “scan” the tree by taking different sets of photos from bottom to top and then use Photoshop to “align all the layers” to reconstruct the image of the tree in its full height, Pearce said.
“My want for doing all this work is to get people to appreciate trees, forests and the environment, and to fall in love with them ... because sometimes it’s our lack of understanding ... which allows processes that are quite destructive to happen,” he said.
Taiwan Forestry Research Institute assistant researcher Rebecca Hsu (徐嘉君) said the lightweight camera was suitable for the strenuous hike.
Pearce’s excellent skills were reflected in how he produced giant tree photographs with a regular camera and a simple method, she said.
National Cheng Kung University geomatics professor Wang Chi-kuei (王驥魁) cited data from the then-Council of Agriculture recorded in 2016 as saying that Taiwan has about 950 million trees.
His laboratory used LiDAR imaging to locate the base and top of a tree, and calculate the distance between them to identify giant trees that were taller than 65m, he said.
As tree bases can be misidentified due to interference from escarpments, an optimal visualization technique was introduced to create a rotatable sectional view, Wang said.
Each tree located was rotated to its best section view either automatically or manually, and then 71,751 images of the trees were crowdsourced to about 200 Internet users to help calculate the trees’ height, significantly reducing the team’s workload, he said.
Data related to the trees’ locations were all removed before crowdsourcing the images for confidentiality, Wang added.
Locations of 941 giant trees identified using LiDAR were handed to the team for on-site observation and measurement, which could yield results that are different from the data, he said.
For example, the Three Chilan Sisters (棲蘭三姊妹) were thought to be a giant tree from LiDAR imaging, but it turned out to be three Cryptomeria-like Taiwania growing together, Wang added.
Left-Handed Girl (左撇子女孩), a film by Taiwanese director Tsou Shih-ching (鄒時擎) and cowritten by Oscar-winning director Sean Baker, won the Gan Foundation Award for Distribution at the Cannes Critics’ Week on Wednesday. The award, which includes a 20,000 euro (US$22,656) prize, is intended to support the French release of a first or second feature film by a new director. According to Critics’ Week, the prize would go to the film’s French distributor, Le Pacte. "A melodrama full of twists and turns, Left-Handed Girl retraces the daily life of a single mother and her two daughters in Taipei, combining the irresistible charm of
A Philippine official has denied allegations of mistreatment of crew members during Philippine authorities’ boarding of a Taiwanese fishing vessel on Monday. Philippine Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) spokesman Nazario Briguera on Friday said that BFAR law enforcement officers “observed the proper boarding protocols” when they boarded the Taiwanese vessel Sheng Yu Feng (昇漁豐號) and towed it to Basco Port in the Philippines. Briguera’s comments came a day after the Taiwanese captain of the Sheng Yu Feng, Chen Tsung-tun (陳宗頓), held a news conference in Pingtung County and accused the Philippine authorities of mistreatment during the boarding of
88.2 PERCENT INCREASE: The variants driving the current outbreak are not causing more severe symptoms, but are ‘more contagious’ than previous variants, an expert said Number of COVID-19 cases in the nation is surging, with the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) describing the ongoing wave of infections as “rapid and intense,” and projecting that the outbreak would continue through the end of July. A total of 19,097 outpatient and emergency visits related to COVID-19 were reported from May 11 to Saturday last week, an 88.2 percent increase from the previous week’s 10,149 visits, CDC data showed. The nearly 90 percent surge in case numbers also marks the sixth consecutive weekly increase, although the total remains below the 23,778 recorded during the same period last year,
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is pushing for residents of Kinmen and Lienchiang counties to acquire Chinese ID cards in a bid to “blur national identities,” a source said. The efforts are part of China’s promotion of a “Kinmen-Xiamen twin-city living sphere, including a cross-strait integration pilot zone in China’s Fujian Province,” the source said. “The CCP is already treating residents of these outlying islands as Chinese citizens. It has also intensified its ‘united front’ efforts and infiltration of those islands,” the source said. “There is increasing evidence of espionage in Kinmen, particularly of Taiwanese military personnel being recruited by the
RSS