Experimental forests play a key role in the conservation and thoughtful use of Taiwan’s woodlands.
Xitou Nature Education Area in Lugu Township sees a steady flow of tourists throughout the year given its location in Taiwan’s forested heartland in the central county of Nantou. It is one of the most popular attractions in the country, with more than two million visitors last year. Even on a rainy autumn weekday, nearly 6,000 people wandered the site, drawn to its impressive skywalk. At 220 meters long and more than 20 meters above the ground, the meandering path through the canopy offers a refreshing forest bathing experience.
Xitou is one of five forest recreation zones that make up the experimental forest managed by the College of Bioresources and Agriculture at Taipei City’s National Taiwan University (NTU). The institution’s forest property covers 32,770 hectares in Nantou’s Lugu, Shuili and Xinyi townships and accounts for almost 1 percent of Taiwan’s land area. Explaining the department’s origins in the Japanese colonial period (1895-1945), the NTU forest administration’s Deputy Director Wei Chiang (衛強) said, “This expanse of forested mountains once belonged to the agriculture department of University of Tokyo before being handed over to NTU after the Japanese withdrew from Taiwan.” The land comprises a spectacular range of elevations and ecosystems, from Yushan, the nation’s highest peak at 3,952 meters above sea level, to the southern banks of the Zhuoshui River. “It’s an ideal location for teaching and research. Together with our conservation work, these constitute top missions for the department,” Wei said.
The University Pond is a former log storage pool that is now a signature attraction at Xitou. (Photo by Chen Mei-ling)
Widespread Network
NTU is not the country’s only institute of higher learning endowed with a sizable stretch of woodland. In nearby Ren’ai Township is the 7,477-hectare Huisun Forest Area, managed by the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources at National Chung Hsing University (NCHU), which also administers three smaller experimental forests totaling nearly 800 hectares in New Taipei City, southern Taiwan’s Tainan City and the central city of Taichung where the school is based. Director Wu Jyh-horng (吳志鴻) traced the origin of the forests’ ownership through the Japanese colonial period to the post-occupation handover of Huisun to NCHU in 1949.
Elementary school students join an environmental education tour at National Chung Hsing University's Huisun forest area in Nantou. (Courtesy of NCHU Experimental Forest)
Chinese Culture University in Taipei and National Ilan University in northeastern Taiwan’s Yilan County also manage experimental forests, as do National Pingtung University of Science and Technology and National Chiayi University in southern Taiwan. These academia-overseen biomes provide teaching and field practice venues for forestry departments and general education centers offering courses on agriculture, pastoral life and forest biodiversity. Students of all ages use the resources, not just those from the universities responsible for the forests. The main beneficiaries of NCHU’s forest include students from Taichung Senior Agricultural Vocational High School, which established a relationship with the university in 2014. “Many secondary schools have forestry-related departments,” Wu said. “They need large woodland for practical, hands-on experience and we’re glad to meet the demand—especially as these arrangements contribute to our university’s social responsibility component,” the professor added.
Apart from promoting education and leisure activities for students and the general public, experimental forests play an indispensable part in protecting local flora and fauna. Ecological conservation areas have been set up across NTU’s forests, protecting red cypress, broad-leaved and Taiwania trees, and through these and other species, a great variety of organisms thrive in the ecosystem. At Duigaoyue, for instance, surveys revealed 317 vascular plant species, 17 species of macrofungus, nearly 300 moth and beetle species, and 85 bird and mammal species.
NCHU’s forestry students gain field experience at Huisun. (Courtesy of NCHU Experimental Forest)
NCHU also places conservation programs high on the agenda. The Huisun forest is part of the Project for Future Green, headed by the Ministry of Agriculture’s Taiwan Forestry Research Institute. Led by the institute’s six botanical gardens around the country, the initiative has worked since 2019 to conserve threatened plants in accordance with the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation, which was adopted in 2002 by the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity. “We’re responsible for collecting and banking seeds from rare low- and mid-elevation plant species in Taiwan’s central region,” Wu said. In addition to the construction of greenhouses to raise such plants at Huisun, he explained that plans are in the works to showcase collected specimens at a renovated historical site in Nantou City.
Connecting People
NCHU and NTU’s experimental forests are also home to Indigenous peoples, including members of the Atayal, Bunun, Tsou and Sediq tribes. Forest administrators prioritize the development of local economies and preservation of traditional cultures. Wei explained that the collaborative mechanism created with resident communities in accordance with the 2005 Indigenous Peoples Basic Law is vital to conservation, as it stipulates the establishment of systems for common resource management and settling disputes. “We’re currently holding joint meetings annually, but we intend to increase the frequency,” he added.
The NTU forest administration has funded numerous programs designed to protect native peoples’ heritage, including a construction project involving Indigenous specialists and the Forestry and Nature Conservation Agency’s use of locally grown lumber and bamboo to erect a traditional Tsou gathering place known as a hufu. The hufu’s grand opening took place in 2022 at Xinyi’s Mahavun Elementary School, and a similar plan is underway to build a kuba, or a structure for men’s meetings. Training courses at Shuili’s Wood Utilization Center offer Indigenous youth carpentry qualifications. “Prospering together with local communities is a major goal for our social responsibility programs,” Wei said.
Looking to the future, both Wei and Wu pointed to forest’s function as a carbon sink. The World Climate Summit has invited input from NTU on achieving net-zero emissions in conjunction with other emerging practices like biodiversity credit mechanisms. The forum is a major side event at the annual Conference of the Parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, which took shape during the 1992 U.N. Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro.
Trails across Huisun offer visitors the opportunity for a peaceful, refreshing forest bath. (Photo by Chen Mei-ling)
Write to Pat Gao at cjkao@mofa.gov.tw