- Taroko Student Association (www.truku.org)
- Skadang Taroko web-site (www.taroko-ecotour.com/news.php)
They moved us from our home on the mountain to the lands below. And once we got to the foot of the mountain, we forgot about our culture and our language and that’s when we became poor… That’s when we became unemployed. Because we no longer had a culture of our own. So, this is what we have been working on for the past three years. We have started taking care of our natural resources and stream conservation. - Isaw Tadaw speaking at the ASN Wagmatcook Workshop, Unama’ki (Cape Breton Island), Mi’kma’ki (eastern Canada), June 12, 2007 (translated by Scott Simon).
Background
For the Taroko in north-eastern Taiwan, the focus has also been on ecotourism (in the famed Taroko Gorge), as well as political activism and efforts to negotiate an equitable relationship with a large industrial resource corporation (Asia Cement) and the Government of the Republic of China (Taiwan) (which established on their territory, without their informed consent, Taroko National Park) (Simon 2005). The case of the Taroko is part of a general climate of aboriginal revival in Taiwan (Chen 2002; Simon 2006).
Some community members have now begun moving back to the remote mountain villages of Xoxos and S’kadang, 1000 metres above the Liwu River, from the village of Bsngan (Fu-shih), Hualien County, set in the lowlands near Taroko National Park headquarters, to which they had been forcibly relocated in the 1980s to make room for the establishment of the Park. In this setting, they are re-cultivating traditional skills including hunting and architecture that uses only local materials.
Capacities and Opportunities
Like the Tsou, the Taroko have maintained strong connections with their people’s traditional cosmology. They also have experience in stream conservation. Their situation in one of Taiwan’s most famed and beautiful tourism destinations affords strong potential for the successful development of tourism and especially ecotourism. Recently, in co-operation with National Taiwan University, they have undertaken GIS-based mapping of their territory. While the establishment of Taroko National Park on Taroko land is a controversial issue (see below), at the same time it has preserved nature from further development by Industria. The existence of relatively undisturbed ecosystems in the Park may, in some regards, ultimately be an asset for the Taroko in the development of ecotourism and in the event that some future co-management arrangement restores the Taroko right to harvest or otherwise utilise natural resources.
Challenges
The Taroko people have been forced to bear most of the costs resulting from the establishment of Taroko National Park. These costs include loss of revenue potential due to a ban on mining (though, ironically, a Han Chinese-owned quarry does operate within Park boundaries); loss of subsistence and commercial opportunities due to a ban on fishing, hunting and gathering wild flora; and loss of development opportunities due to restrictions on the transformation of the land surface or other construction. For most aboriginal peoples in Taiwan, as elsewhere, the establishment of national parks has not brought them any benefit; on the contrary, their traditional economic and cultural activities have been seriously restricted and their life made much more difficult. Perhaps most significantly, the Taroko National Park law now prohibits any form of hunting, which constitutes a violation of the Taroko aboriginal right to hunt. During ASN workshops, one member of the community openly wept as he apologised for not being allowed to hunt and therefore being unable offer fresh game to guests to his village. As Simon (2005) points out, hunting is at once the core of Taroko culture and their principal aspiration in terms of what they consider “development”.
Since the only means of transporting goods up and down the mountain is either to carry it or to use a prohibitively expensive gravity elevator monopolised by one community member, the Taroko have sought permission and assistance to build a road up to Taroko high-mountain villages. Taroko National Park authorities, claiming jurisdiction over the territory, have declined the application. Taiwan’s aboriginal rights movement points to inconsistencies in law enforcement-which differentially treats Taroko and Han Chinese (Taiwanese) interests-as evidence of a ‘crisis of representation’ of the Taroko nation and ties this crisis closely to the head of the Park.
Frustrated by Taroko National Park administration persistently ignoring their concerns, more than 1,200 Taroko people participated in a protest in October 1994-the biggest aboriginal protest in Taiwan in recent decades. They shouted slogans including “anti-oppression”, “fighting for survival rights” and “hand back our land” and demanded that the park administration to accept their 16 requests (Chi 2001). The Taroko are now trying to develop the political, financial and legal resources to challenge the Government of the Republic of China (Taiwan) and large corporations.
One of the factors which render difficult the establishment of a good working relationship between Taroko leadership and the administration of the park is the almost bewildering succession of Park Directors. The fourth Taroko National Park “Park Head” (Department Chief) (處長), Mr. Yeh (葉世文 先生), held office from November 1999 until October 2002. Yeh was held in high regard and established effective liaisons with the Taroko people, being the first Park Head to establish a feedback committee in which the Taroko were invited to express their opinions on park operations. His successor, Ms. Huang (黃文卿 女士), ran the park until early 2007. Huang closed the slim door that Yeh had opened for the Taroko to express themselves in the park’s administrative meetings. Instead, she chose to subsidize local festivals and other activities. Whether or not this was an attempted co-optation is a moot point. She did win the goodwill of many Taroko people during her term. The current Park Head is Mr. Lin (林永發 先生). To date, Lin appears reluctant to take any steps that might be regarded as extraordinary, such as Yeh’s local feedback committee. The Taroko have had continually to adjust to new expectations, new attitudes, and varying levels of participation in the park’s administration over the past several years.
Finally, competing factions within the Taroko nation sometimes impede cooperation, particularly when distribution of finances becomes a major concern. There are also severe debates on issues related to the land disputes with Asia Cement Company, cultural representation among individual cultural brokers, the name correcting movements (which debate the proper name of the Taroko people) and the best way to achieve autonomous status.
