Nurturing Kinmen's Trees

Here's a cool little story that I heard from my father-in-law about his days on JinMen island, just off the coast of Xiamen, as a soldier in the 1950s.  At that time there was serious fighting and the island was armed to the teeth with soldiers and weapons. 

He recounts that one officer had the common sense of realizing that to stay indefinitely on the island wouldn't be feasible without trees.  Without trees, he argued, keeping people on the island wasn't sustainable.  Apparently JinMen was a little barer than it looks today. 

So he made it mandatory that all soldiers planted a tree upon their tour of duty.  But that's not all.  The officer tied the well being of the soldier to the survival of the tree.  If the soldier didn't take care of and nurture his tree, he would face the consequences. I think that's a novel idea.  It's funny how enlightened (under military rule of course) thinking like this can have a positive effect for the long term of the island. 

This follows exactly with what Jared Diamond warns about in his book Collapse when describing how the culture on Easter Island collapsed after all the trees on the island were chopped down (among other things).  He also cites the case of Dominican Republic which instituted their national forest program under a dictatorship.  The Dominican Republic now has a very healthy forest system while Haiti on the other side of the shared island suffers with most of its trees chopped down.

Orchids are Big Business

 Orchids are quite commonplace in Taiwan.  These parasitic plants are sold in flower markets across the island.  They can be found potted in wood waste rather than the traditional soil that grows other plants.

They are also big business in Taiwan with Taiwanese businesses working to cut the cost of the flowers down and make big bucks in the process.  In fact you can find huge nurseries like the one in the pictures below run by JinChe (Gold Cart), makers of Mr. Brown Coffee and Kavalan whisky in YiLan and elsewhere.

http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_14103306?nclick_check=1

My father would be jealous to know that our orchids at home flourish without much attention in the moist and relatively warm weather of Taiwan.

Opening the Book on Landslides Again

I've written before about the anti-betelnut campaign in Taiwan that may be due to educated, 'civilized' city dwellers despising the chewing habit and making every excuse to attack betelnut trees and their betelnut chewers. You see, betelnut chewing is a part of Taiwan culture but it is considered low-class by some...

http://blog.islaformosa.com/2007/09/war-on-betel-nut-and-betel-palms.html

Betelnut trees being the root cause for disasters has come into doubt following the devastating summer typhoon of 2009.

"In the absence of any official declaration of the underlying causes, residents have filled the void with speculation.

Taiwan’s forestry bureau says native subtropical trees had covered most of the deadly mudslide areas of Kaohsiung County in southern Taiwan, doing more to hold mountain sides intact than to loosen them. Villagers had planted mainly bamboo, mangoes, peaches and taro on the lower hillsides. They had shunned betel nut plantations and high-mountain tea, which are common elsewhere on the island and are notorious for destablising soil for lack of deep roots, an agricultural official said.

Other disaster authorities point toward Taiwan’s fragile geology and ecosystem, including repeated earthquakes, typhoons and an early 2009 drought that have left hillsides at increased risk, allowing even huge deep-rooted trees to fall last month.

“Taiwan is an important case study in climate change,” said Chern Jenn-chuan, deputy minister of the cabinet’s Public Construction Commission. “We can say that natural disasters will be more and more severe. We can be sure of that.”

The villagers claim:

"Decades of forestry, farming and over-population have loosened mountain soil all over the island, leaving it prone to massive slides."

http://blogs.reuters.com/china/2009/09/17/aggressive-land-use-set-off-deadly-taiwan-mudslides/

So once again it seems that betelnut trees, often scapegoated in these disasters, are not the culprit this time. In fact, there are a wider range of factors which would fit nicely in Jared Diamond's Collapse theories.

On top of this it is interesting that high mountain tea is also mentioned due to lack of deep roots. Why isn't there an anti-high mountain tea growing campaign from intellectuals?

So it appears that farming and deforestation in general are more likely the cause of landslides. Why do people believe the anti-betelnut lobby so blindly?

Shark's Still on the Table

Someone recently posted an article about how an aquarium in Taiwan is hosting a whale shark. The article seemed to suggest that the Taiwanese are becoming more environmental, especially when it comes to sharks.

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/china-and-its-neighbors/090803/meet-taiwans-whaleshark

I laugh at this suggestion. Don't be fooled.

As much as we wish Taiwanese would take more of a serious look at environmental issues, the fact remains that their old habits die hard, particularly about food, which Taiwanese are obsessed with. Shark fin is and will be on the table for some time to come. Taiwanese brutally slaughter sharks by the hundreds to get these fins for Chinese restaurants all over.

Read my previous shark blog entry

To understand the Taiwanese position, take for example some discussions I have had. I have talked to Taiwanese friends on numerous occasions about Canada's seal hunt and Japanese hunting whales for 'research' purposes. Why kill the cute little seals they say? I say it's to control the seal population so that fish stocks don't get too low. Still not ok. When it came to Japanese whaling, they said this the right of Japanese since whale is tradition food for Japanese (which flies in the face of what Western people feel about the whale hunt).

When I turned to shark hunting, the Taiwanese also turned a blind eye. They've always caught sharks. Sharks eat us so why shouldn't we eat them first, they said. Besides, they're delicious in soup.

To top it off, I'll leave you with a comment I heard from an avid young Taiwanese surfer friend. I asked if there were worries about sharks in the water around Taiwan where he was surfing.

To this he answered, with a smile that conveyed that it was a typical Taiwanese answer to the question, that there are no sharks in the waters around Taiwan. Taiwanese sharks can only be found on Taiwanese restaurant tables! (I am such a silly guy, of course I should know this.)

He continued to smile after cracking the 'joke,' perhaps thinking of chowing down on that perfect bowl of shark fin soup. Unknownst to him, he had given me a perfect example of the mentality Taiwanese are up against when it comes to the shark fin trade that they are unwilling to give up.

Recycle This

From 2008_11_16 Good Citizen

In case you are wondering what types of things are recyclable in Taiwan, here is a good brochure that we received from our neighborhood leader to help us sort it all out.

Banana Peel Flowers

This flower looks innocuous but it is a menace.

In Taipei it falls on the sidewalks here in Taipei, especially on Fushing South Road. It grows high on the trees that line the sidewalks.

And why the fuss? Well, they're as slippery as banana peels if you step on one and you can wipe out if you're not careful.

Seems like a strange kind of flower for the city to have growing near sidewalks.

They're called 木棉花 or bombax ceiba or commonly 'tree cotton' or 'cotton tree'.

According to the Wikipedia: "The cotton in the husks were used a substitute of cotton. Its flower was a common ingredient in Chinese herbal tea." wiki

I'm going to call it 'banana peel flower tree'.

Blinky the three-eyed fish awaits

It always kills me how people can frolic in the waters in Kenting and be completely oblivious to the nuclear plant just meters from the beach.

It's clearly visible in the background. And although it's probably claimed safe and probably is safe, wouldn't you still want to err on the side of caution???

Most Taiwanese are ok anyhow. Lots of Taiwanese don't go in deeper than waist deep as they are not swimmers. Students often refer to "play water" which usually means wading and splashing around with friends.

My guess is that Taiwan built the nuclear plant there long before people got into the beach craze. Masses of Taiwanese heading to the beach and beach culture can be seen as relatively recent thing in Taiwan. As are bikinis. When I first arrived in 1997, girls rarely wore bikinis at the beach. Typically they wore shorts and a t-shirt. Thank god for progress on this front!

Saving the Environment

You’ve got to hand it to the Taiwanese, they’re on an environmental kick. Taiwan now has recycle bins everywhere, garbage is separated at fast food outlets, the plastic bags that used to be given out everywhere are now limited and must be purchased and the general amount of garbage produced has really gone down. On the bad side, they don’t want to give up their precious cars and other things that cause the terrible pollution.

Cities and citizens are planting trees and flowers and making parks and generally beautifying grungy old and run-down neighborhoods. People’s hearts seem to be in the right place if not somewhat let down sometimes, as the next story will show.

A teacher at a primary elementary school in Taipei found a natural spring on their school’s property. A environmentally minded teacher decided to take action:
“Taking it as an opportunity to teach students about nature and ecology, Chen in 2000 turned the "wetland" into an ecological park complete with a pond, a pavilion with solar-powered lamps, frogs, butterflies and egrets…. The school last year [2003] applied for and received from the Ministry of Education NT$8 million [roughly CAD $325 000] to expand the park.”

Unfortunately, and I don’t know whether to laugh or cry, the ‘spring’ turned out to be a leaky water pipe that had wasted 45 000 tonnes of water over 27 years!

Read it here:
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2004/03/06/2003101333