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55 Chapter Three: Taiwan Forestry Bureau-Rukai Indigenous Peoples Co-Management
Initiative
In my second case study, I will focus on the Rukai peoples of Taiwan, particularly their historical movements, claims to traditional territories, and ongoing disputes and discussions with the Taiwan Forestry Bureau. I will then describe the steps that the Rukai peoples and Forestry Bureau are taking to establish a co-management committee, the objectives for the potential committee, and any present concerns or conflicts the Rukai peoples and Forestry Bureau have regarding the lands and resources to be managed. Because of the newly emerging nature of these co-management discussions, the information I will present was largely collected through a
walking workshop conducted across nine different Rukai villages, discussions and presentations by scholars, community members, and Forestry Bureau representatives at these villages, personal observations from such, as well as a supplementary literary survey.
Figure 8– Meeting at Kundagavane, Walking Workshop 2017
I. Forestry Bureau-Rukai Peoples Case Context
Historical Background
The Rukai peoples of Taiwan are one of the sixteen officially recognized indigenous group in Taiwan. As of 2014, “the Rukai numbered 12,699” and were the seventh largest of the
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56 thirteen officially recognized indigenous peoples of Taiwan at the time (Rukai People 2016).
Originally, the Rukai population was concentrated at Dalubaling (“the Big Ghost Lake”), but over time, Rukai peoples spread across southern Taiwan and are now primarily located in the counties of Gaoxiong, Pingdong, and Taidong (Rukai 2008). Nowadays, “the Rukai mainly live along two sides of the southern mountains of the Central Range” (Rukai 2008). Similar to the Taroko peoples, Rukai peoples have historically lived in the mountains, and thus often feel a special connection to their traditional lands in high mountain areas.
In the 1940s, the Japanese colonial government launched large-scale relocation plans for the Rukai peoples, resettling many villages from the high mountains to the lowlands for easier monitoring and assimilation. After relocating the Rukai villages, the Japanese Office of Agricultural Production often took control of the forested lands and used the forests for
collecting timber, producing camphor, and harvesting other forest resources. In the forests near the village of Taromak, the Japanese army used caves and other hideouts to hide from Chinese soldiers during the war with China.44 When Japan lost the war in 1945 and ceded Taiwan to Chinese control via the Treaty of Shimonoseki, these previously Japanese-controlled forests were then brought under the jurisdiction of the Taiwan Forestry Bureau. Initially, some Rukai peoples cooperated with the Forestry Bureau in caring for the forest, thinking that they were doing so to protect the land.45 These same Rukai peoples were quickly disenchanted when they found out that the Forestry Bureau had actually rented out the land to Han peoples for other purposes and development, and many felt that the renting out of their traditional forest lands was extremely unfair.46
Recent Developments
During and following Japanese colonial rule and KMT rule, some Rukai villages had been allowed to remain in their original mountain territories. In the past decade, however, natural disasters and typhoons have forced these villages to resettle in lower altitudes as well. In 2009, Typhoon Morakot struck the southern and eastern parts of Taiwan. The typhoon caused severe damage to several mountain villages, including Adiri (Ali), Labuwan (Dawu), and several
44 Information collected as a result of the author’s participation in the Walking Workshop 2017.
45 Ibid.
46 Ibid.
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57 others that were completely destroyed and forced to relocate to Changzi baihe and Rinari
(Haocha). Not only did the typhoon cause damage within the villages themselves, it also
precipitated landslides and rockslides, which destroyed roads to the traditional villages that have yet to be fully repaired to this day. As a result of the instability of the land and the hazardous state of the roads, the state government of Taiwan has deemed several of these traditional
villages to be unsafe zones, and subsequently forced the relocation of the villages’ inhabitants to the lower foothills.47 Currently, former inhabitants of these mountain villages face great
difficulty in returning to the lands which they had previously owned and cultivated, which has had both psychological and socio-economic impacts on numerous Rukai people, especially those in the older generations.48
Figure 9- Rockslide near village of Adiri (Ali), Walking Workshop 2017
Because Rukai peoples have historically lived in high mountain areas, many of their traditional subsistence practices included hunting and cultivating millet, sweet potatoes, quinoa, and other vegetables. According to legislation enacted by the Taiwanese Legislative Yuan, including the Wildlife Conservation Act, the Controlling Guns, Ammunition and Knives Act, and forest reserves delineated and protected by the Forestry Bureau, indigenous peoples are severely limited, if not prohibited, from carrying out these traditional activities. On the one
47 Information collected as a result of the author’s participation in the Walking Workshop 2017.
48 Ibid.
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58 hand, the illicit nature of hunting has had a significant social impact on many Rukai villages, particularly because hunting has historically been the primary way by which Rukai men have demonstrated their contributions to society and gained their status among their peers.49 Additionally, the restrictions on hunting have had an economic impact as well, as many Rukai villagers who used to live off of the land and game from hunting in the mountains cannot afford the cost of living in the lowlands.50 With regard to the cultivation of agriculture, several villages, including Changzi baihe, raise concerns about the infertile nature of farmland in the lower
foothills, as well as the lack of arable land. In Changzi baihe, the land was once used to grow pineapple, which largely depleted the soil of many nutrients, making it difficult for Rukai people living there now to grow millet and sweet potatoes.51
Following Typhoon Morakot in 2009, some Rukai villages innovated to develop new ways of producing food and sustaining themselves. In Labuwan (Dawu), several local villagers collaborated with researchers to open an organic chicken farm, where they raise healthy chickens to provide meat for the local villagers. The farm is completely self-sufficient, and unlike many other chicken farms, the chickens are fed millet, quinoa, wild leaves, and cooked snails, and the farm does not depend on any outside preservatives or antibiotics.52 This farm has also helped to serve as a form of ecotourism in Labuwan, which has led to the slight expansion of the chicken farm itself. Unfortunately, because of the damage caused by the typhoon, the elderly generation of Labuwan, like many others, became depressed because of their inability to access their traditional lands and sustain themselves in the mountains. In Changzi baihe, depression in the older Rukai generation has been exacerbated by the inability of them to live near their old neighbors or feel a strong connection to the land.53 Traditional festivals, which were once celebrated to bring good harvests, have lost much of their meaning in this new lowland context.
While several disaster relief organizations, including the Tzu Chi Buddhist organization and the World Vision Christian organization, helped in building homes for these displaced communities, because many middle generation Rukai peoples had moved to the cities for work, not enough houses have been built for the number of Rukai people that actually belong to each village.
49 Information collected as a result of the author’s participation in the Walking Workshop 2017.
50 Ibid.
51 Ibid.
52 Ibid.
53 Ibid.
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59 On a more positive note, however, because of President Tsai Ying-wen’s formal apology to Taiwanese indigenous peoples on August 2016, as well as the recent unveiling of the
Indigenous Historical Justice and Transitional Justice Commission, “the Rukai [peoples]…
established a tribal assembly April 3 with the goals of preserving their cultural heritage and facilitating eventual autonomous rule of traditional lands” (Taiwan Today 2017). This assembly, or Rukai Community Council, is “comprised of tribal leaders as well as elected representatives, with each Rukai community selecting one or more delegates depending on its population size”
(Taiwan Today 2017). Presently, applications for forest resource use must be completed and submitted through the District Council because the Forestry Bureau requires such applications to be done through a legally recognized entity.54 The Rukai Community Council leader, however, has voiced his hopes that this assembly will soon be a legitimate, legally recognized
organization, so that collaboration and negotiations for resource use can be conducted more directly between the Rukai Community Council and the Forestry Bureau.55 In the coming sections, I will further discuss the steps leading to a potential co-management committee, as well as the intended operations and the current concerns on behalf of both the Rukai communities and the Forestry Bureau.
II. Coming to the Co-Management Committee
Because the concept of a co-management committee between the recently announced Rukai Community Council and the Taiwan Forestry Bureau is the first of its kind, the initiative itself is just in the beginning stages of discussion. As has been established in the earlier section on co-management, however, co-management is an ongoing process, so in beginning dialogues about the viability and functionality of a co-management committee to protect and oversee development in Rukai forested lands, the co-management process has already been launched through the walking workshop (Berkes 2017).
With regard to the method of developing the Rukai peoples-Forestry Bureau co-management committee, Professor Fikret Berkes pointed out that the process was begun by collaborating in a five-day walking workshop through nine different Rukai villages. This
54 Information collected as a result of the author’s participation in the Walking Workshop 2017.
55 Ibid.
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60 workshop was a collaborative effort between the Taiwan Forestry Bureau, the Council of
Indigenous Peoples, the recently unveiled Rukai Community Council, and the individual Rukai communities and villages along the way. The workshop participants included representatives from the Forestry Bureau, Rukai community leaders and scholars, university professors and researchers, graduate students, and a visiting scholar and expert on co-management, Professor Fikret Berkes.
Figure 10- Walking Workshop participants in Taromak, Walking Workshop 2017 Throughout the workshop, we visited nine different Rukai communities, including:
Kundagavane, Oponoho, Teldreka, Adiri, Wutai Township, Labuwan, Changzi baihe, Rinari, and Taromak. In each of these communities, the local community leaders and villagers participated in conversations with Forestry Bureau representatives, each voicing their concerns regarding access to natural resources, hunting rights, traditional territories, ecotourism, traditional
knowledge, afforestation, and other points of interest, which I will discuss further in section IV.
The participants also shared their desires with respect to the establishment of a co-management committee and what its role and responsibilities would be. Rukai communities have long voiced their desires to return to traditional territories to hunt, fish, gather materials and resources for subsistence and the continuation of traditional cultural practices, as well as promoting
sustainable development and ecotourism. This workshop enabled the communities to
communicate their desires to collaborate with the Forestry Bureau in carrying out these activities, while also providing the Forestry Bureau with a chance to respond in kind to these requests.
Professor Berkes, who was invited to participate in the workshop to share his experience in establishing co-management committees around the world, outlined the primary steps taken in
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61 carrying out the co-management problem-solving process (Berkes 2017). The steps are as
follows:
1. Define the area to be managed
2. Identify who the involved actors/parties are 3. Define the essential management tasks
4. Make sure that the linkages are such that the decisions reach the decision-makers 5. Establish a capacity for development
6. Prescribe remedies and begin the planning cycle (which for each agenda item will start all over again)
Berkes argued the significance of co-management as problem-solving as engaging in the process can help to determine what to do with resources and who can use what when, where, and under what circumstances (Berkes Forest Bureau Forum 2017). During the workshop itself, Berkes repeatedly asserted that co-management is not a series of projects between the Forestry Bureau and local Rukai communities, but instead is a way of sharing decision-making power through an agency that over time will become a legal platform for the co-management of Rukai forested lands for years to come.56 The significance of collaborative projects between the Forestry Bureau and local communities, as in Taromak and Adiri, is not to be overlooked. These projects are important in helping to allocate some degree of responsibility and decision-making power to the local Rukai villages. What is most important, however, is not to let the collaboration come to an end when the projects do.57 It is imperative that the Forestry Bureau and Rukai communities work together to develop a plan for long-term co-management with a committee that may begin as more of an advisory agency with legitimate decision-making power, but eventually leads to a legal platform for the future co-management of Rukai forested territories.
As previously mentioned, while this co-management committee has yet to be formally established, the discussions between the Forestry Bureau and Rukai community leaders indicate that the process of instituting such a committee have commenced. The next step in this process appears to be continuing communication and deciding among the interested parties who will participate on the committee, how the board members will be selected/elected, how terms and the
56 Information collected as a result of the author’s participation in the Walking Workshop 2017.
57 Ibid.
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62 chair position will be determined, as well as the frequency of meetings and the items on the agenda.
In the course of establishing the committee, Berkes noted that the Forestry Bureau and Rukai communities would likely face several challenges, including questions of budget, altering the current mode of thinking among Forestry Bureau representatives and Rukai community members, implementing maps of traditional territories due to movement over the years,
organization because other government agencies may also be involved, and legal issues resulting from the incompatibility of the existing legal framework with the goals of co-management.58 While “after nearly two decades of field research and interviews with elders, 96,114 hectares of Rukai lands have been identified, about 77 percent of which are currently controlled by the Forestry Bureau under the Cabinet-level Council of Agriculture,” further challenges will arise in asserting Rukai claims to these lands due to centuries of migration and relocation, both forced and self-determined (Taiwan Today 2017). However, as voiced by the Rukai assembly leader,
“the assembly’s primary goal will be to help facilitate the establishment of a joint management mechanism for these areas,” which it seems will best take place through the formation of a co-management committee with the Taiwan Forestry Bureau (Taiwan Today 2017). I will elaborate on the intended operations of this committee in the following section.