The Bible’s book of Ruth tells the story of a rich farmer who allows two poor widows to glean fallen grains behind the reapers during the harvest, and instructs the reapers to let more grains fall than usual. Coming to the water caltrop fields of farmer Lin Bing­huo in Tainan’s Guantian District, one can’t help but recall this tale.

Leaving food for animals

Lin’s fields are very different from those of his neighbors. He grows four-cornered water caltrops (Trapa quadrispinosa), which are a rarity on the market, using eco-friendly farming methods, and times his planting and harvest in coordination with the breeding season of the pheasant-tailed jacana (Hydrophasianus chirurgus). The embankments between his fields are two meters wide. “Rodents like to dig holes, so the embankments need to be thick enough that they can’t dig all the way through and let the water leak away.” Because he does not use herbicides, plants thrive on the embankments, and even the rare swamp shield-fern (Cyclosorus interruptus) has found a place here.

Beneath the water’s surface there is an abundance of creatures, including predaceous diving beetles (family Dytiscidae), water bugs (genus Diplonychus), and river snails (family Viviparidae), which attract water birds such as the black-winged stilt and the common moorhen to feed. In several places, water caltrop petioles (leaf stalks) are piled up on the floating leaves; these are nests built by the pheasant-tailed jacana (commonly called the “water caltrop bird” in Taiwan).

“We want every animal to be able to find something to eat here,” says Lin. All animals are welcome to “share a meal” in these caltrop fields which produce food for human consumption. Lin seems very much like the generous landlord in the Bible who had his reapers deliberately leave behind extra grain in his fields.

The pheasant-tailed jacana, which lives on floating water caltrop leaves, was once endangered, but after more than 20 years of restoration work its population has increased from 50 to 2,000.(courtesy of Lin Binghuo)

Animals in competition with humans

We are all familiar with well-known native species in Taiwan such as the Formosan black bear, the Formosan sika deer, and the Formosan landlocked salmon. Fortunately, today there are protected areas such as nature conservation ­areas and national parks where they can live out their lives safely.

However, different creatures require different living environments, and it has become increasingly apparent that many wild animals living in the foothills, plains, and coastal areas are facing serious threats to their existence.

Statistics show that 55% of protected wild animals in Taiwan and 64% of plants on Taiwan’s Red List of Threatened Species live at elevations below 1,000 meters. These living things compete directly with humans and the pressures on their survival are no less than those for creatures in mountain forests. The areas where they are mainly active are often private land, private forest, and coastal areas where there is a great deal of human activity. The approach used in national forests of directly delineating protected areas is not feasible in their case.

Fortunately, that does not mean that nothing can be done to help them. Farmland on which sustainable and eco-friendly methods are used, along with embedded Satoyama landscapes, can function as green corridors linking the mountains with the plains and provide a place of refuge for wild animals.

This why the Forestry Bureau, Taiwan’s highest-­ranking conservation agency, launched its Taiwan Ecological Network (TEN) program in 2018.

Water caltrop farmer Lin Binghuo has adopted eco-friendly farming methods. (photo by Lin Min-hsuan)

Mountain, ocean, forest and farmland

As a long-term public program supported by the Executive Yuan, what makes TEN unusual is that it is “not about constructing physical infrastructure, but about using ‘soft’ methods to introduce conservation work into public construction projects,” explains Shih Chih-chin, head of the Habitat Management Section in the Conservation Division at the Forestry Bureau. Based on scientific data, TEN maps out biodiversity hotspots in Taiwan as well as areas in urgent need of conservation. In total it has identified eight major areas and 44 locations of concern.

Because the circumstances, issues, and subjects of conservation differ in each case, the program’s diverse policy tools can be used flexibly. For example, the “payments for ecological services” program provides incentives to encourage eco-friendly farming practices in important habitats for endangered species. Or, fences can be erected along stretches of highway that are roadkill hotspots to guide animals to cross them via culverts, sluice gates, and the like. In this way habitats that have been fragmented by development, changes in cultivation practices, or excessive pesticide use can be reconnected.

The ultimate blueprint of TEN, under the precondition of not altering the existing landscape, is to build point-to-point and areal links between conservation projects in individual localities, using forests, rivers, rural communities, and the sea to weave together ecological corridors into a green network in which humans and animals can harmoniously coexist.

These terraced rice fields are maintained by traditional human and animal labor, in a classic Satoyama landscape. 

A farm that is home to frogs

We next arrive at the fields of bamboo-shoot farmer Lin Shengwei in Dalin, Chiayi County. Having taken over the running of the bamboo-shoot farm started by his grandfather, Lin decided to switch from conventional to organic farming when, through an introduction from a friend, he attended a seminar recruiting people as conservation partners to protect the farmland green treefrog (Zhangixalus arvalis).

The organization holding the seminar was Watch Nature Ecological Consultant Company, which undertakes frog research and conservation work in the Jianan Plain. Founder Chuang Meng-hsien, a scholar who does frog research and conservation, says bluntly that within the last decade, because a great deal of bamboo forest has been converted into rice paddies and pineapple orchards, along with increasing urban sprawl, the farmland green treefrog, which needs specific environmental conditions for its survival and is highly sensitive to change, has been rapidly disappearing. After hearing about the TEN program, Chuang proactively took on the role of a key advocate who mediates between farmers and government agencies to promote conservation.

Stepping into the bamboo forest on the Lin family farm, the canopy of towering bamboos casts a changing pattern of moving shadows. This is not just a bamboo-shoot farm, but also a home for the farmland green treefrog. Guided by the Watch Nature team, a thick, loose carpet of fallen bamboo leaves have been left where they fell to provide hatching grounds for the treefrogs’ eggs. Meanwhile, shallow pools of ­water on the ground are the “nurseries” where tadpoles live after hatching. There is a great disparity in the sex ­ratio of the frogs, with males sometimes outnumbering ­females by as much as 13:1. But many female frogs can be found in Lin’s bamboo forest, prompting the team to humorously dub him “keeper of the 3,000 beauties of the imperial harem.” 

Bamboo shoots with a certification mark showing that they were grown under conditions that preserve the habitat of the farmland green treefrog. (photo by Lin Min-hsuan)

The farmland green treefrog, which prefers to live in mixed forest or bamboo forest, is listed as an endangered species. (photo by Liu Fang-ju, courtesy of Watch Nature Ecological Consultant Company)

Gongliao’s rice terraces

TEN’s core concept is to find ways, founded in ­nature, in which humans and nature can coexist and even thrive side by side. But surprisingly, it turns out that this forward-looking ideal has long been a part of Taiwan’s cultural code. We know this from the terraced rice fields of Gongliao District in New Taipei City.

Green terraced fields, rising level upon level, are embedded in the valley of the Shuangxi River. This tract of farmland is both precious and fragile. The ­Environmental Ethics Foundation of Taiwan (EEFT) has long been active here, and Shiue Bo-wen, director of its Conservation Department, tells us that because of their unique structure, the terraced fields are especially vulnerable to damage by being walked on. In addition, because the fields are so narrow, it is not possible to use large agricultural machinery in them. Because the ­water drainage network is independent, and also ­because farmers cultivate crop varieties they have bred themselves, the area forms a closed ecological system. “These fields have never been invaded by golden apple snails, and they provide safe homes to many rare species with limited areas of distribution.”

In these fields that are kept flooded year round, one can see many threatened or endangered species including the flowering aquatic plants small floatingheart (Nymphoides coreana) and Deinostema adenocaulon, while on the embankments between fields there is Utricularia bifida, a species of carnivorous bladderwort, and on the terrace walls one finds the bamboo orchid (Arundina graminifolia). In addition, there are rare species of fauna such as the Chinese rice fish (Oryzias sinensis), the yellow­-­bellied sprite (Ceriagrion melanurum, a species of damselfy), and the crab-eating mongoose (Urva urva). All these testify to the fact that this pristine land provides a rare refuge for many plants and animals.

To enable this delicate and precious ecosystem to survive, even before the launch of the TEN program the Forestry Bureau had sought out the EEFT and like-minded local residents to proactively lobby farmers to use eco-friendly cultivation methods to continue farming the rice terraces.

Each conservation project requires cooperation between different agencies. The photo shows people who have worked to protect the farmland green treefrog. From left: Liu Fang-ju and Chuang Meng-hsien of the Watch Nature team, bamboo-shoot farmer Lin Shengwei, Huang Jui-chang of the Tainan District Agricultural Research and Extension Station, and Wang Congwei of the Chiayi Forest District Office. (photo by Lin Min-hsuan)

“Ho-ho Rice” is the brand name of rice cultivated in the terraced fields of Gongliao.

A new chapter for mankind and nature

Shiue Bo-wen explains that EEFT’s involvement did not greatly alter the cultivation model already used ­locally. EEFT mainly used scientific tools to describe and analyze the existing practices of local agriculture, and to distill them into a workable methodology that they asked farmers to collectively adhere to.

If it weren’t for people putting in the work, how could this paradise exist? When we look at the terraced rice fields softly mirroring the sky, and their abundance of life, we cannot help but sigh. It is only thanks to diligent and conscientious farmers who are willing to take on the hard work, that this unique manmade wetland can exist to provide a home for more than 850 plant and animal species.

It is obvious that humans can’t live without nature, but we can switch from a lifestyle of only taking from nature to one of mutual benefit. As the rice terraces of Gongliao demonstrate, it is possible to make harmonious coexistence between nature and mankind ­sustainable. 

The rice terraces of Gongliao are home to many rare species.