National Parks of Taiwan

Taiwan’s eight national parks include high mountains, ocean, wetlands, historic relics and an array of other valuable features. Today, the national parks are striving to protect the pristine state of the land and sea areas they cover, allowing natural cycles to continue without human interference. To mark the 100th year of the ROC, in addition to each park holding a series of celebratory activities, the CPA has also planned the “21st Century Taiwan National Park Sustainability Forums” to which scholars from various fields, experts and citizens will be invited, using a “world café” format that allows all interested citizens to participate in discussions about the directions that national park management should take to make ensure national park sustainability, together with experts creating a new vision for national parks.

It is 26 years since Taiwan’s first national park was established. In this period a number of notable natural environment protection achievements have been made, including Formosan landlocked salmon restoration, protection of the black-faced spoonbill and increased international cooperation that has made Taiwan’s contribution to nature conversation widely known and praised internationally. In 2012 a new page for Taiwan’s national parks will be turned when the government establishes the National Park Commission. New views of conservation policy and environmental education need to be achieved through discussions in which there is wide public participation so that different ideas can be heard and constructive suggestions can be used as reference when the new National Park Commission formulates new policies.

Six “21st Century Taiwan National Park Sustainability Forums” will be held, dividing Taiwan’s eight national parks into north, central, south 1, south 2, east and outlying islands. In the first forum, Taijiang National Park invited local residents, people who care about wetlands and local cultural development groups to share their views, the equal and respectful way of carrying on discussions finding favor with all concerned. Forums will be held in Kenting and Dongsha Marine, Yangmingshan, Kinmen and Taroko national parks. The scope of discussion of the forums will include national park system and policy, coexistence between people and land, resources management, eco-tourism and national park organization reengineering, innovation and environmental education, offering ways that people and national parks can coexist that will allow national parks to be sustainable for the reference of policy makers.

When national parks are established a set of management laws and regulations needs to be set and the boundaries delineated and this, to one extent or another, affects indigenous people, local residents and travel operators so the CPA used the opportunity provided by the holding of this forum to listen to the opinions of the public. Professor Lin looked back and said that as soon as the first forum began a member of the public presented a negative view of national park management. However, as discussions continued, presided over by a moderator, and various people in attendance offered their views, it became clear that this “close-up” method of discussion is very productive in terms of being able to find out what participants actually think so what seemed a setback at the beginning actually ended up as a good start for the national park sustainability discussions.

After discussions in each of the six areas, the forward-looking planning of national parks was clear. It is hoped that when discussions about national park management direction are held in the future a full consensus can be reached and this can be reflected in policy and management. It is hoped that this interaction method of communication can be used in the future so that the national park issues the public cares about are in clear focus and new directions that lead to national park sustainability in the future can be decided.

Translated by：Kevin Lax
Source：CPAMI