Since : April 1, 1951
|
Traveling with a Conscience Taiwan's high degree of biodiversity gives it great potential for ecotourism development. (Photo by Chang Su-ching) Publication Date：06/01/2007 Taiwanese are taking their time admiring the ecological beauty and diversity of their island. Alternative modes of travel can be challenging but worthwhile. In January, Hsueh Chuen-guang, a high school principal in Taipei, took a two-day holiday around Nanao, a small fishing port on the northeastern coast. Hsueh is normally a car user, so a two-day tour involving a day of bicycling along a 45-kilometer route followed by a day of hiking along the Chaoyang trail led by a guide who explained the natural environment and local aboriginal culture along the way, was eye-opening, as well as exhausting. "It's really tiring, but for the first time I felt very close to nature," Hsueh says. "Unlike traveling in a car, you can really observe and appreciate the environment moving slowly on a bike or hiking a little-known path and develop your love for it." Thanks to efforts by both the private and public sectors, ecotourism--traveling in a natural environment, taking into account conservation to ensure sustainable development, as defined by the White Paper on Ecotourism published in 2002 by Taiwan's government--is gradually gaining popularity among Taiwanese. The trip Hsueh took was organized by the Taiwan Cyclist Federation (TCF) and partly funded by the Cabinet-level National Council on Physical Fitness and Sports. Hsueh felt his experience was so rewarding he advised the Taipei County government to organize similar trips for elementary and high school principals. With the assistance of the TCF, two such events have been held so far. Taiwan's ecological diversity offers lots of opportunity for ecotourism development. With its high mountains, located where the subtropical and tropical regions meet, Taiwan has good reason to boast of its richness in flora and fauna. "There are many species which seem nothing special to Taiwanese, but are very rare elsewhere in the world," says Kuo Chen-meng, director of the Taiwan Ecotourism Association (TEA) and a botanist teaching at National Taiwan University. "For example, tree ferns are rarely seen in other countries, but they are a common sight in Taiwan; you can easily see them even in Taipei's suburbs." According to Kuo, there are nearly 700 different kinds of fern alone in Taiwan. "Taiwan is small so it really can't compare with places whose sheer size gives a beauty to the ecology--the spectacular sights of an African safari, for example--but we do have a large number of endemic species," says Wu Tsung-chiung, a professor at the Graduate Institute of Recreation, Tourism and Hospitality at National Chiayi University. "Simply speaking, spend a short time on the island and you'll be impressed by how many species it has." "Traveling on the island's east coast you can have two different geological plates under your feet. That's something you can't do in many other places," Kuo says, referring to Taiwan's east coast being the meeting point of the Philippine and Eurasian Plates. "People on the island might be used to seeing high mountains, but the lofty ranges rising alongside the ocean are quite a sight for many foreigners," he says. Aboriginal Cultures The rich cultures of aboriginal peoples and, more importantly, their growing self-respect, also help boost ecotourism. "Ecotourism trips involve understanding and respect for the tourist site's local culture and the relation between local people and the natural environment," says Eddy Lin, vice president of the Society of Wilderness. Only when aboriginal people feel proud of their identity are they willing to preserve and show their cultures to the public, he says.  A number of aboriginal cultures enrich Taiwan's ecotourism. (Photo by Chang Su-ching) The concept of ecotourism, if not the word itself, has been around for a long time, Wu says. For example the Yellowstone National Park, the first in the world of its kind, was established as long ago as 1872, and people in the United States started paying attention to the issue of the capacity and sustainability of tourist sites over 40 years ago. In Taiwan, the concept of designating specific places as natural to be preserved and providing services to facilitate that appreciation emerged in the early 1980s, leading to the establishment in 1984 of Taiwan's first national park at Kenting on the southern tip of the island. "For the first time people in Taiwan could appreciate nature more deeply through systemized guide services provided by national parks," says Lin. In Taiwan the tools of ecotourism--guided tours through and appreciation of natural beauty spots--are therefore as old as the national park system. "We just used different expressions to describe this type of tourism in the past," says Lin Yi-hou, formerly director of the Kenting National Park Headquarters and currently the president of the National Park Association in Taiwan. Five national parks now exist on the island of Taiwan and one on the outlying island of Kinmen. A seventh is scheduled to be created this year on the Pratas Islands, which lie in the South China Sea, 440 kilometers southwest of Kaohsiung. It will be Taiwan's only national park that mainly features oceanic ecology. In national parks, where ecological protection takes priority over the development of tourism, measures are taken according to the National Park Law, formulated in 1972, to minimize the impact of human activities on the environment. Entrance into certain spots within a park can be limited, and the construction of car parking is limited to discourage the use of motor vehicles. Evolution of Sightseeing National parks account for only 8.45 percent of Taiwan's land area. Traditional sightseeing, involving hordes of people driven around in cars and buses crowding scenic spots and clogging the roads, is still common on the island; in fact the situation has worsened since the implementation of a five-day workweek in January 2001. Traffic becomes slower, travel time longer, and more environmental damage is the result. "The situation is especially worrying beyond the boundaries of the national parks, as conflicts between tourism and environmental health have arisen," says Lee Wu-hsiung, director-general of the Construction and Planning Agency (CPA) under the Ministry of the Interior. While there has been much talk about ecotourism in the past few years, Lee thinks most people still do not understand what it really means. "Going out on a tour bus, eating good food in a nice restaurant, and ending up producing a lot of trash in scenic spots. This is by no means ecotourism," he says. To promote a better understanding of the concept, the National Council for Sustainable Development announced that 2002 was to be the Year of Ecotourism, echoing the United Nation's International Year of Ecotourism the same year. Taiwan's White Paper on Ecotourism was published that year, clarifying the principles of ecotourism--limits on the number of tourists and employment of guides familiar with the local environment and culture, for example--and urging related government agencies to promote tourism from the angle of environmental sustainability. "By doing so, the government hopes to prevent tourist spots rich in natural resources from falling victim to overuse," Lee says. Having accumulated years of experience in governing Taiwan's national parks, the CPA is now playing a major role in the government effort to develop ecotourism. It asks various government agencies such as local governments, the Tourism Bureau (under the Ministry of Transportation and Communications) and the Council of Agriculture's Forestry Bureau, as well as national parks, to refer to the white paper and recommend ideal spots or routes within their jurisdictions with significant potential for development. A team of 15, funded by the government and consisting of experts in ecotourism and representatives of NGOs like the Taiwan Nature Trail Society and the Wild Bird Federation of Taiwan, then visit the candidate sites to decide whether they are really suitable for ecotourism. Agencies promoting worthy projects receive a research report written by the team detailing the measures that should be taken to develop the proposed sites. Since the first list of candidates was announced in 2005, 11 have received such a report. Making it Public Much of the Tourism Bureau's efforts to develop ecotourism is spent on publicity, Web site and publications, says Chen Yu-chuan, a section chief. It also has been searching for ecological resources to promote as tourist assets since 1997. Together with scholars devoted to cetacean conservation, it did research work on Taiwan's potential for developing whale and dolphin-watching tours in 1998 and turned the activity into a tourist feature on Taiwan's east coast.  A trip to Hualien organized by the Taiwan Ecotourism Association aims to enhance participants' knowledge of organic agriculture. (Courtesy of Taiwan Ecotourism Association) The bureau also offers assistance to communities within its 13 national scenic areas interested in developing ecotourism by, for example, providing training in local cultures for guides. "One major goal of the effort is to increase job opportunities for locals," says Liu Chyong-ru, a section chief of the Alishan National Scenic Area Administration in southern Taiwan, referring to the case of the Dabon community, located in the scenic area. Dominated by Tsou aboriginal people, the community became more aware of ecological issues and started to clean up its environment in 2002, following which the scenic area administration stepped in to help them promote ecologically sustainable tourism. According to the Dabon Community Ecotourism Association, established last year, about 600 tourists per month visit the area and stay in its six homestays in peak seasons. As the first ecotourism project in Dabon has proved to be encouraging--it is one of the model sites of ecotourism--the scenic area administration plans to initiate two more this year. Another government agency which is a major player in ecotourism is the Forestry Bureau. Not only does it take care of 18 forest recreation areas, but since 2001 it has played a key role in a project to check and repair existing hiking and climbing trails in Taiwan's mountains. It has also planned a national trail system, consisting of 14 sub-systems, each of which has great ecological or historic significance, plus more than 60 regional systems such as the Chaoyang hiking trail at Nanao. More than 600 kilometers of mountain trails have become passable and safe to travel on after repair work. NGOs are also doing their part in promoting pollution-free and eco-friendly tourism. TCF has been organizing activities targeting cyclists of different levels of fitness since its establishment in 1999. For example, a two-day event is held annually in April in which cyclists circle Hualien and Taitung on the scenic east coast of Taiwan. This year, it attracted about 1,500 cyclists, up from 150 in 2000. "With traffic jams everywhere at holiday times after the launch of the five-day workweek, people naturally think of bikes," says Ho Li-chin, TCF's general secretary. Involving Travel Agencies The TEA is cooperating with several travel agencies interested in developing this mode of travel. "People today have long forgotten the beauty of a simple and natural life. That's why we want to do ecotourism and provide something different to the market," says Hardy Liu, a specialist with Skyline Travel Agency, adding that both himself and the company's owner love taking in-depth trips. Consisting of experts in ecological conservation, TEA helps these travel agencies by recommending interesting sites for ecotourism and offering advice. Generally speaking, ecotourism tours are small in size so that the quality of travel can be assured and the impact of human activities on the local environment can be reduced. "For example, the guides don't use loudspeakers so we avoid noise pollution," Kuo Cheng-meng says. When having meals, tour members do not use disposable tableware either, as is often seen in many restaurants on the island. "Before the tour, we communicate with the tour members as well as the hosts about what the tour should be like. It's about conservation, not about spending money and doing as you wish," he says. "The emergence of ecotourism has much to do with the rise of NGOs devoted to environmental education," says Eddy Lin of the Society of Wilderness, which has been offering guide training in ecology and rural life since its establishment in 1995. "Natural disasters like flooding and mudslides alert the public to the need to practice healthier and responsible tourism," he says. Still, there is a long way to go before ecotourism is widely accepted. "Many inquire about our ecotourism products, but only a few are willing to pay the money for them," says Hardy Liu. "We don't go to luxury hotels, but the tour members may still have to pay high prices because we have experts like Kuo Chen-meng as guides. Many prefer to spend the same budget on good hotels and fancy amusement parks," he says. Similarly, Lin Yi-hou feels that the travel habits of Taiwanese tourists are still not good enough. "Oftentimes you see Taiwanese singing and having fun in karaoke bars at night which line the sides of the street through Kenting, while they're supposed to be enjoying the breeze and watching the stars on the beach," he says.  Peaceful and pollution-free, cycling is the best way to enjoy Taitung's coast. (Courtesy of Taiwan Cyclist Federation) There is an obvious tension between promoting tourism and protecting the environment, which ecotourism seeks to reduce but cannot altogether eliminate. "There are pros and cons to promoting ecotourism," says the Tourism Bureau's Chen Yu-chuan. "Familiarity with the environment will lead you to cherish it more, but without good management, problems will arise." "Humans are part of nature in the first place, so it's natural for us to return to it. We should not talk about how to keep away from it; we should educate people about how to travel within it," says Eddy Lin. Administrative Tools Education aside, Lin thinks Taiwan should resort to other tools to develop a more mature ecotourism, such as a unified national system for guide licensing. "The most important thing is not how knowledgeable a guide is about nature. It's about whether he or she shows respect for nature when explaining it," he says. When introducing a certain plant species, for example, a guide may talk too much about its uses and medicinal effects for mankind and consequently induce people to abuse it. "In this case, you think you're on an ecotourism trip because you're in a natural environment and the guide knows a lot about it, but the guide service actually can be harmful to the environment. That's why we need a reliable licensing system." Before ecotourism matures, he says, standards and licensing systems should also be set up for travel agencies and the sites that claim to offer ecotourism experiences. "And mechanisms for monitoring the impact of tourists on the natural environment should be widely established as soon as possible," he says. Perhaps radical change in the course of ecotourism's development will occur only when the public wakes up to how ecologically destructive traditional modes of travel and sightseeing are. Eddy Lin thinks this is slowly happening. Like many critics of Taiwan's tourism development, he cites the current situation at Chingjing Farm, a well-known site in the central mountains, as a case of what not to do. "Too many homestays and too many visitors have turned the once-beautiful site into a mess. Go there and you wouldn't want to pay another visit. So homestays have a hard time making money now." Tourist development at Chingjing, which Lin associates with trash, polluted water, noise and traffic jams, has proven to be unsustainable, but he thinks this situation should stimulate both the tourists and tourism-dependent businesses, mindful of how easy it is to kill the golden goose, to develop a more conservation-oriented outlook. "When we talk about the value of ecotourism, we shouldn't put too much emphasis on short-term benefits," says Wu Tsung-chiung, who has been offering advice to the Dabon community on ecotourism development for the past few years. Indeed, quick benefits from unlimited amount of tourists often come at the expense of ecological health and sustainability. Meanwhile, Hardy Liu is expecting the number of tourists seeking unconventional travel experiences to increase--at present, Skyline's ecotourism trips see many repeat customers. Although the financial reward from these tours is quite limited, the travel agency intends to keep organizing them, since it believes ecotourism in Taiwan has potential. It may be challenging to promote an alternative mode of travel, but waiting for it to take off is worthwhile.
Selected Ecotourism Sites Yangmingshan National Park Taroko National Park Kenting National Park Fu Shan Research Station Whale and Dolphin Write to Oscar Chung at oscar@mail.gio.gov.tw |