 Welcome to our Centre of Taiwan Studies lecture. Tonight is the latest lecture in our contemporary Taiwan Indigenous People's lecture series that's sponsored by the Shreeney Museum in Taiwan. What we're trying to do in this lecture series is highlight a range of topics from different academic disciplines that look at issues related to Taiwan's Indigenous people. We've had talks on political science, on anthropology, on religion, and today we look at the topic of Taiwan's Indigenous people and environmental politics. Our speaker today is Professor Wantingea from Changrung Christian University in China, in southern Taiwan. So he's just arrived at Changrung. Previously he'd been at National Taiwan University on a number of post-doctoral projects. I first met Professor Wantingea back in 2008 when I was his PhD examiner. I'm quite well known for being a horrible examiner. In other words, I tend to be very, very tough and I tend to give people two vibers in 18 months. The kindness normally I give is one-year revision plus a second viper. So usually I'm quite nervous about facing people I've examined before because I know what a tough time I give them. But Professor Wantingea is one of the exceptions. He's one of the very few people who I gave minor revisions to. If I say that the other person who I gave minor revisions to was John Sullivan, you can get some idea about how highly I rated Professor Wang's work. He was also one of the first PhDs I ever examined, I think, maybe a couple of years after I came to. He did his PhD at King's College in the geography department. He had a fascinating project that looked at the linkage between environmental politics and Taiwan's indigenous people. He particularly focused on a national park project in the Translipian years. So when we were thinking about who to bring to us to look at environmental politics and Taiwan's indigenous people, he was one of the first names on our list. So we were really delighted that he was able to find the time in his busy schedule to come back to London to share his research. To a certain extent, this paper today has given him a chance to actually revisit his early studies and try and update his earlier work. I think this is your first SOAP talk, is that right? Okay, that's fantastic. We'd like to welcome you to SOAP, so hopefully he'll be back tomorrow for his second environmental politics. Friday. No, Thursday. Friday is Lianhwanching. Okay, so let's give Peridio one a very big SOAP welcome. It's always good to be back in London. As you have just heard, my name is Wonding J.I.M. I will be joining China University, the International College of Practising Education for the Environment. It's a long name. I speak at China University from February. Now, today I'm going to talk about indigenous peoples and the politics of the environment in Taiwan. Now, to be honest, I really cannot claim to be an expert on indigenous affairs because I'm mainly from the environmental side. In my projects since 2016, I've worked with indigenous groups on the eastern coast. I sort of know their perspectives and their problems. Writing this paper really helps me to revive my interest in the relations between indigenous peoples and environmental politics in Taiwan. For today's presentation, I will first give you a short introduction about the problems of the research. I will discuss the impacts of colonialism on indigenous human environment interactions in Taiwan. I will mainly focus on Japanese colonial period. Then I will discuss the economic development and cases of environmental injustice in the post-war era. I will talk about democratisation, process and indigenous activism and environmentalism since the late 80s. I will conclude with some recent developments and play studies. I gave a lot of pictures of areas. First, when we think about indigenous peoples and the environment, when these two things come together, what would come to your mind? If you are familiar with the literature on environmental politics, you would understand that often times from the environmental perspectives, that indigenous peoples are in harmony with nature. They are closer to nature than we are. We are sort of the moderns. They are either because of their ways of living or proximity to natural environment and so on. It is often assumed that indigenous peoples are in harmony with nature. But I think that kind of notion should be contested because it really sort of misunderstands the indigenous situations today. On the other hand, environmentalists and indigenous peoples can form alliance. As you can see on the pictures on the left, these were the Native American tribes who united in protest against pipeline projects in North Dakota. Now, as I will describe in a lecture later, environmentalists would form alliance with indigenous activists, but they can also have a lot of tension between them. For example, on the pictures on the right, you will see in Chinese that the indigenous basic law. Based on that law, you should return to our people our right to hunt in national parks in Taiwan. That's one of the source of the tension between environmentalists and indigenous groups in Taiwan, but not just on the island but also in other countries as well, in Africa, in North America too. The first thing I would like to highlight is that the relationships between indigenous people and environmental groups can take multiple forms. So, the second theoretical focus would be in what ways have colonial and post-war political developments affecting the indigenous human and environmental interactions in Taiwan and how do indigenous people respond? This is especially important when we look at the Japanese period because during that time, indigenous people are not as being made into political agents of environmental politics as today. So, I think the focus will be more on how colonial legacy, how colonial ways of governance have changed indigenous lifestyle. Well, I'll show the introduction to Taiwan since we are here at the center of Taiwan Studies, so I think that should help to popularize the case for studying Taiwan, especially regarding indigenous affairs. The first thing is that Taiwan has a very distinctive colonial history compared to North America, Australia, or Africa. It is colonized by the only non-Western colonial powers in Japan, which was the main modernizer of the Taiwan island. The second reason would be Taiwan has diverse landscapes and indigenous cultures. As you can see, on the western part, it's mainly plains, flat areas. But from north to south, in the central areas, it's mostly mountains. So, mountainous areas are actually half of the land mass. It's very forbidding because Taiwan has the highest peak, mountainous peak in East Asia, namely Yuxan. So, you can imagine, if you go to the mountains, it's just high and very forbidding. For Han people, who may not be so skilled in forest life, but also for administrators as well. For either for Qing dynasty or Japanese too, anyway. In indigenous cultures, well, they have more links to other Austronesian peoples and language across the Pacific, rather than Han Chinese culture. And Taiwan actually were popularized before the arrival of Han people. They were popularized. They were populated by plains and highland evergines. And it's very much unlike today when you speak of the highland. When you speak of indigenous people in Taiwan, you only think of the highland tribes. Actually, prior to that, the plains areas were full of not full of just, I mean, they inhabited there too. So, yeah, Taiwan has since political revitalization, there has been strong environmental indigenous activism. And also interestingly, even though Taiwan has been ousted from the United Nations, the other has tried to keep up with progress in international human rights regimes. So, well, as always to showcase that, well, you can exercise sovereignty against the people's Republic of China's claim over Taiwan. OK, so a short history of the convoluted regime change in the past. Now, prior to the Dutch rule in the early 17th century, there was no, how do you know, real political regimes on the island. So, the Dutch colonial rule, well, along with Spanish, were probably the first political regimes on the island. When then followed by the family of Cossing Da, or Cossing Ye, who expelled Dutch in 1662. But the island was taken over by China in 1683 until late 19th century. And Japan took over after the first sign of the Japanese War. And the government of the Republic of China took over again after 1945 at the conclusion of the Second World War. And then there was a single party authoritarian rule since 1945 until around the late 80s, when the lift of martial law and political democratization followed. Well, prior to Japanese, it was kind of, what would you call it? A kind of frontier society here in Taiwan. They can be categorized into three groups. The first group was the Chinese settlers. Cooked savages, meaning indigenous people living on the plains. Cooked, meaning being more civilized. And raw savages living beyond the border, as you see here in the white area. Now China will call them raw savages. On the plains, the society was more or less a kind of Han-dominated society that emerged with a hybridized culture because of ethnic interactions, intermarriage, and assimilation, or assimilization of plains of Aborigines. Now raw savages remain un-text and un-covered. Living beyond the borders, which is highlighted in the white area. So effectively the Qing China does not have sovereignty beyond the borders there. And that means really high mountains. Now, since the second half of the 19th century, international competition and conflicts intensified, resulting in the, for example, the Densher incident in which some Okinawa sailors were killed by indigenous people in the south of the island. So that gave Japan an excuse to invade Taiwan. So Japan got very interested in Taiwan. Now I will discuss that later, but right now I would like to emphasize that indigenous culture change and adaptation is a crucial aspect in the cultural interactions here. Because some environmentalists would love to think that indigenous people, you know, live in a very isolated situation. Whereas in actual fact they have been interacting with the Dutch, with Qing China officials. And with Han settlers all alone. So they have partial exposure to modern trade and technology. They do chemical trade as well, which was a lucrative trade in the later half of the 19th century. They have a lot of guns. So they have accumulated lots of guns and they can be very powerful militia. And that's why in 1894, when Taiwan was being seeded to Japan, you see the ungoverned areas around there. After 10 years, or more than 10 years, Japanese still cannot effectively govern the central mountains. So, well, here's a map produced in the early 20th century when the Japanese rule, when the Japanese conducted the making of safaris. Just to give you an idea that the planes they were in June, they leave on work, on the planes. But because nowadays when we look at Taiwan we tend to think that, you know, but prior, previous to that, prior to that, the planes that were ever in June were from north to south, from west to east, and from planes to the highlands, the mountains. Okay, so Japanese colonial rule. Well, Japanese have a lot of modernizing projects for Taiwan, including having full sovereignty over the island, unlike the Qing, China. So it used, well, as I would describe, military attacks and so on. But on the other hand, it also conducted scientific surveys, population survey and maps which the Qing didn't do very well until the end of its rule. And it has a lot of urban planning and infrastructure projects and agriculture and industrial development and modern forestry as well. But first priority for Japan was to quell on high resistance. And then after that, they would look at the headhunting role savages in the mountains. They call it the fund or the management of savages. So the administration, well taken scientific way approach, they begin by doing initial surveys and mapping of Taiwan, its geography and society, especially regarding the highlands. So as you see from those pictures, those are the old pictures from the Japanese conquest of the highlands. And this is one of the ceremonies, the photo of the ceremonies, celebrating the surrender of one of the ingenious tribes. So between 1902 and 1915, the Japanese colonial administration launched military campaigns and strict measures to gain control over highly ingenious tribes. And the goal was to, first, is to subjugate and manage the so-called savages. And second, to develop the forest and conduct resource extraction and for forestry minerals, agriculture and so on. So what did Japanese do? Well, firstly, they proclaimed state ownership of lands and forests. For forests that have no documents or deeds, or any document showing previous ownership, that will be state lands. And that will include most of the forests in Taiwan because the role savages being on tax and on government, they don't have the documents to show that they own those lands. And they are very different from settled agricultural groups like Han people. So the Japanese also installed a series of guidelines and police posts to supervise and to discipline the indigenous peoples. They conduct punitive military expeditions, for example, the Canfield Walls against Attaya and Stig tribes in the north. And the Japanese also conducted hierarchical walls for very bloody military attacks on the Turkish people in 1914 using something like 20,000 soldiers against 2,000 Turkish people who almost got wiped out in that wall. And then to manage the indigenous peoples, the Germanis forced them to resettle in flatlands or foothills near to police posts, sometimes mixing different tribes of enemy lands so as to break the power structure in them. And there were also other civilizing and assimilative programs. For example, education and language use, development infrastructure of roads and railways and so on, bending in a project in the genius customs and asking them to adopt agricultural practices. And finally the Comincar movement since during the Second World War. OK, one peculiar thing about the Japanese rule is that it really decisively shaped the indigenous people, their relations and lifestyle afterwards. And it produced irrevocable iterations of funds between indigenous peoples and their lands, which is really crucial to their cultural revival today. So, for example, as I mentioned, they have lost their ancestral lands to the state. And the Japanese state encouraged state and private enterprises into the forest to extract resources such as Canter and Timber to satisfy domestic meaning in Taiwan. And sometimes to profit from international trade. And for this location, production of agricultural production. And also indigenous peoples were forced to refrain from subsistence economy and join capitalistic production and trade. For example, they would become auxiliary to the Canter trade. And prior to that, they were doing Canter trade with Han Chinese. So they were kind of like profiting for themselves. But after the Japanese came in, the lands became state owned instead of belonging to the tribes. So I guess you can say that the most important aspect is that the Japanese broke the bounds between indigenous peoples and their lands. And that have repercussions in the post-war period as well. But I think it's really important that, especially if you have looked at other literature in Taiwan studies, you would know that Japanese colonial legacy is a very complex issue. I mean, from the presentation above, you may feel that it's kind of like the indigenous people were the victims of Japanese rule. But the reality was much more complex because the Komikawa movement, which to make Taiwanese people imperial subjects of Japan, especially regarding indigenous people who were secondary citizens previously, now they would have a chance to become the imperial regular, normal subjects of Japan. Now, during that time, that was kind of an honor. So a lot of indigenous peoples were proud that they could speak Japanese very well. And they are very fond memories of Japan. I remember seeing one of Jo and Jo and Jo, a Taiwanese historian. When she interviewed a tribal elder, when she tried to talk about his Japanese experience, the elder would stand up and begin to see Japanese answer. So the Japanese legacy is a very complex one. Also because the post-war experience initially wasn't that great. So a quick review of the developments after World War II. Since 1945, the Republic of China Game Control of Taiwan after Japan's defeat in World War II. But in 1949, of the Republic of China, or the Chinese Nationalist Party, it was made into China and fled to Taiwan. And since then, it can deal with the Terran regime, it was installed until the Marshall Law in 1987. And as you are probably aware, Taiwan was one of the four tigers. Its economy grew rapidly since the 1970s. While political pressures erupted in the late 80s, in the 1990s, after the lift of Marshall Law, democratisation began and the nativist politics intensified. By that, I mean the kind of Taiwan-centered identity politics at the time. In contrast to the China-centered viewpoints or worldviews imposed by the Kennedy regime. And this resulted in the first democratic transition of power in the 2000 presidential election in which the transition being of the DPP won. Well, after the war, the Kennedy authoritarian rule was equally harsh not just to hand people, but also to indigenous leaders too. So for many indigenous peoples, the KMD's governance was reminiscent or even extension of the Japanese rule doesn't change really that much. Because from the indigenous perspective, you are all foreign powers, foreign regimes coming into Taiwan, taking my lens from us. So from an indigenous perspective, that doesn't really change much. So the KMD adopted seniorization majors and strict control of modernized areas because they were very afraid that the communist bandits would hide in the mountains. And political suppression and white terror, which the KMD during that time was very famous for. For example, the KMD have killed Kaohsiung and Tang Shoran. Two of the indigenous leaders were executed in the 50s. While Scott Simon suggested that... We probably can see the indigenous people as they are on the side of economic miracle in Taiwan. They have not really profited from the economic boom since the 70s. One of the crucial reason was that loss of ancestral lands continued. The KMD government had no intention to return those lands to indigenous peoples because it considered itself to have inherited the land ownership from the Japanese colonial state. So any use or taking of forest produce by indigenous people was considered theft. And since 1968, the KMD government began to decimate Aboriginal reserve land or reservation land. But it's a very tricky law. It was intended to protect the indigenous communities. But actually, if you are an indigenous person and you wanted to register those lands under your name, you have to have evidence of having conducted agriculture for 10 years, which many indigenous people just don't have that kind of experience because they are not agricultural groups. They were not their customs. So it created difficulties for indigenous people. But on the other hand, the Han people can lease by whatever means. They could lease, try to lease those reserve lands reserved for indigenous people and try to develop. So the result is now on these lands, you're going to see Han business. Employing indigenous people paying very low wages today. So it's a very... Well, that was then anyway. And the KMD original also adopted the involuntary relocation of indigenous settlements because control of indigenous groups was of utmost importance. So some of the tribes were moved to even lower altitude. And yet again, as with Japanese times, indigenous people were encouraged to grow cash crops in the field of subsistence economy. This may sound good, but actually the environmental conditions in the mountains may not be that good for agricultural production. So that may be... That wasn't such a great policy from an environmental perspective. So in any way, many cases of environmental injustice followed or discussed this. Here I'm showing the case of hybrid deforestation between 1954 and 1972. These were the trucks or the forestry crew hired by the Veterans Affairs Council. The Veterans Affairs Council at the time was trying to find because when the KMD relocated to Taiwan, they brought a lot of soldiers, veterans. And the KMD Government had to create jobs for them. Otherwise, there's going to be rebellion. So one way was to exploit Taiwan's abundant forest resources in the mountains. So one scholar, Cheng Guodong, of the academic cynicam, he gave an estimate during the so-called hybrid deforestation period about two years, within two years of during this period, the affected areas locked by the Veterans Affairs Council would equal the total area of forestry affected by the Japanese during the Japanese times. So only two years would equal the whole Japanese period. So you can imagine that was huge forestry exchange earned by these products. A second, of course, the forestry hybrid deforestation period resulted in very strong environmental movements afterwards because Taiwanese society looked at this period and thought, this is proper theft. How can you co-indigenous people try to take something from their own land theft? And when you look at this, compared to this. So, well, other cases of environmental injustice, for example, may include Asia cement quarry mining in Hualien, which is located on the eastern side of the island. Asia cement is owned by a very powerful businessman, Shu Shu Dong in Taiwan. The boss of the Dong Group are very, very powerful men. And the company acquired lands in 1973 through very dubious means. For example, by duping the indigenous people who have the land deeds to sign their names on a paper without specifying the details and so on. It's a huge controversy right now since 2016 because the Asia cement tried to renew their mining license and the Ministry of Economic Affairs granted the renewal. And of course, their vigorous protest emerged against the decision. I myself personally am not being asked to do a social impact assessment on the renewal, but it's a very, very controversial case because part of the quarry is located in a national park. And as I will describe later, in national parks you will not do such things. Moreover, the site was very close. I think it's just somewhere around here. About 700 meters. Very close to Turuku settlements. So, because as you can see it's not in the plain, in the flat land area. In the mountains it's quite dangerous and they can't expand the area so they're deep, deep. Deeper and deeper they use explosive devices. So, when the explosion takes place indigenous communities would feel the repercussion. So, that was serious impacts on their life. But, Asia-Asiamian has all sorts of reasons or arguments. For example, it contributed significantly in the Taiwan economy and so on. So, they got a renewal of their mining license. And the indigenous people having protested this since the 70s didn't stand a chance against this very powerful business. Now, national parks. National parks in Taiwan has been a very important environmental institution protecting biodiversity and the natural environment in the mountains. The national park law was enacted in 1972 which largely borrowed from the United States. So, since 1984 the government began to set up national parks in the mountains. The problem with the model is that in the United States the national park movement is very much based on this notion of wilderness of an untouched environment pure pristine just there that shouldn't be intervened or received human impacts. So, it used very exclusionary measures to protect the environment while ignoring the historical indigenous activities on those lands. Now, that of course received protests from Native Americans but also in Africa where such models were imposed. That would result in huge conflicts between park administration and people who have used those protected areas not for juniors but maybe for centuries. Now, under the national park law in Taiwan indigenous peoples are strictly prohibited from hunting. They cannot contact hunting, gathering plants, coring crops and so on. But what they call the general or regulated areas you can conduct scientific research. You can build commercial facilities. You have to receive tourists of course. You belong by hand people. So, you would understand the indigenous anger at national parks. To them, this is the idea of theft from their eyes in the name of the environment. You can see why I mentioned earlier that there may be strong a lot of tension between environmentalists and indigenous groups. So, three of the national parks Isan and Sheba and Taloko national parks have events that are overlapping with the Aboriginal Reservation Act or traditional territories claimed by Budong, Ataya and Zuluq peoples. Now, these days, I think after the year 2000 when the Taiwanese politics got more receptive towards indigenous demands among the groups and indigenous activists have been asking for co-management borrowing from Australian models. So, on the right you see I think this is a very recent happening that indigenous people asking for the competition of effective co-management schemes and changes to the national park though. The problem is not just that changing the national park though is very difficult in Taiwan because environmental groups would absolutely oppose the idea once the national park to be untouched remain untouched however and whatever but also because if you want to be part of the employees in national parks you have to become part of the bureaucratic system you have to pass certain exams but it's very difficult for indigenous tribes to pass those exams because it's just not their strength So, you're putting people who don't really know about indigenous people in those places in national parks while ignoring people who may have good in depth knowledge of the environment there running the national park administration So, well there are many practical difficulties in trying to implement reforms Finally, there is the Nuclear Waste Storage Facility the OK Island or Lany The storage facility as you see on the upper right is built by Thai power the former state power company in Taiwan and well, the island is just an island offshore offshore island in the south seas of Taiwan and it was built in 1982 the Thai power just went in and started building they didn't really consult the Yami or Tawu people there, whether you want to receive this nuclear waste or not who were not told the consequences of the risks of nuclear waste storage So, yep, the Yami people have protested ever since until now and sadly just in last year's election the issue was being abused by pro-nuclear groups as you know in those online forums and social media you can make all sorts of arguments they would say, you know, the Tawu people have received all this money from Thai power company and why does they have been so ungrateful they wouldn't want to have this storage place in their homeland and, yeah those languages will remind you the old KMD or Japanese days but we should ask in the first place why we need to put the nuclear waste outside of Taiwan putting on the island with population around 3,000 people and trying to tell them that it's not it's just harmless to put it there it's really a lot of irony here so that was 1991 an old photo and that was just after the lift of Marshall Road when politics was still very tense and just not well the next photo is taken in 2013 showing the travel elders wearing their traditional helmets making protests, asking the nuclear waste to be moved out from Okiada and they are still making the protests year after year in various ways well, anyway since the 1980s the politics began to democratise and civil activism emerged well, a few developments here first the information of the nativist oriented democratic progressive party DPP in 1986 who had a better relations with indigenous activists and the lift of Marshall Road in 1987 followed by political reforms in the 1990s onwards there has been very strong civil activism first universal direction first universal direct election of the president of ROC at the Republic of China took place in 1996 and first peaceful democratic politician in the year 2000 and I should mention that environmental and indigenous activism have a love-hate relationship with the DPP as you saw on the upper right that was a... I think that was in the early 1990s when Chun Dian Nan of the DPP opposed a development project and also the indigenous politics was a very important element in the nativist politics in Taiwan because when the DPP and now so-called PENBLU forces tried to articulate a town-centred identity they would include the indigenous people as a justification that well, the island does not belong to China because indigenous people were the real the original owners or masters of the Taiwan island aside from domestic reforms there also was an influence of international legal regimes Taiwan tried to keep up with the progress in international legal regimes or United Nations directives even it's not one of the members of the UN because they didn't want to use such cases as exercise of sovereignty trying to refute people's republic of China's claim over Taiwan's international status and NGOs also used such progress trying to pressurize the government especially in the field of wildlife conservation and human rights and indigenous rights for example, indigenous rights the domestic movement was already very strong since the 1980s there had been name rectification movement so the indigenous people asking the government instead of calling them mountainous compatriots there should be called indigenous peoples which was in line with the international indigenous movement since 1987 there had been indigenous self-rule movement and anti-lingu west movement and since the 80s return events movement which culminated in the traditional territory mapping and recent declarations of your declarations around 1999 before the DPP became president the DPP signed a new partnership between the indigenous people and the new government specifying that for example the new government should be elected he will implement many demands from indigenous people concerning lands, the retaining of lands and self-rule and so on but as you know well, Transylvania was strong resistance in the congress so it was basically very difficult but anyway the DPP was more receptive to indigenous demands anyway so on Transylvania's second turn the government issued the indigenous peoples basic law which was very important milestone in Taiwan and in 2016 President Tsaiingwen of the DPP offered an official apology to indigenous peoples and her government also placed up the traditional territory mapping and designation afterwards for example in 2017 the government issued guidelines for the designation of indigenous peoples lands or tribal areas which indigenous activists would consider crucial to their cultural revival now in Taiwan indigenous groups and environmental NGOs can collaborate on certain topics as I mentioned anti-nuclear issues issues on non-nuclear waste for example and the preservation of old gross forest which were in the interest of both parties and other unsustainable planning and development projects for example the mining site I just show you but there are many other issues that environmental NGOs feel less important or simply opposed for example the indigenous rights to development environmental groups are really not keen to hear about this agenda and other issues like hunting in national parks and protected areas which were opposed not only by environmental groups but also by Buddhist organizations the goals of self-rule well the environmental NGOs have no use for that because it's mainly from the environmental perspective they don't really think well in the hands of indigenous people how would I know they would ensure that they will have the environment properly protected because like any other groups on the island they have an interest in development so you see these environmental groups and indigenous NGOs may just have small overlap and sometimes they will be pulled in different directions now here I will use indigenous rights to hunt as an example the hunting is central to the talents of indigenous cultures but their rights to hunt has been restricted by Wildlife Conservation Act the regulation governing permission and management of guns, ammunition, knives and weapons a very low grade statute but huge consequences if you want to have a gun if you want to own a gun and as I said indigenous people have been using guns since who knows when not just recently so they have used guns to hunt it's almost like they're part of their tradition so they don't use arrows mind you but indigenous don't want to hear that they would imagine well they should hunt not with guns because that would be what happened if that is combined with commercial hunting but many scholars have shown that indigenous people they don't do that anymore because the demand, the market demand is so low now these days for rare animals, mountain animals and third is the national park law which I mentioned was very difficult to change and luckily since the year 2004 there have been amendments to Wildlife Conservation Act that allows indigenous people to own guns to conduct hunting in protected areas for ritual purposes the problem being this amendment was very much ignorant of how indigenous people hunt ask indigenous hunters to make registration of how many you are going to hunt for your ritual purpose whereas indigenous hunters take cues from dreams for example from what their ancestors tell them through whatever means they wouldn't do prior registration so in effect even with that amendment indigenous hunters don't do registration they just go hunting and the government knows that so it's a kind of very bureaucratic mindset against a very practical people who just want to be left alone doing their own business well this picture shows quite a few tribes united together making a bonfire releasing the signal to hunt in protest against many arrests until recently many arrests indigenous hunters were arrested because they had their own guns in proper ways or because they conducted hunting but right now I think the high schools have ruled that indigenous hunters are allowed to hunt for their cultural needs and so there may be ease of regulation the regulations may be eased in the near future and scholars have argued that with proper monitoring mechanisms in place indigenous hunting practices and knowledge would be very important in wildlife management in Taiwan so instead of a very essentialised mode of wildlife management like national parks you can divide the protected areas into several hunting grounds and let indigenous people using their traditional knowledge and hunting knowledge to give an estimate and to regulate the species number but there was still a long way to go because legal reforms are needed to reflect changing perception of indigenous hunting and environmental NGOs had been reluctant to increase their willingness to work with indigenous people so there's another change and I'll just go quick now finally the issue is regarding indigenous traditional territories the basic law stipulates that in development projects ought to go through conservation process but in practice there was very few such appellent for example the famous summer lake which was actually the traditional territories of the Shaozhu Shao people and there was a project just last year that was located on the ancestral lands and that went through the environmental impact assessment but did not consult the Shao people for their consent against the basic law so vocal opposition ensued and resulting in the EPA's withdrawal of the AI conclusion and that was the beautiful site of the project the Shao people's ancestral spirit rest so you can see it's a very stupid decision if the Nantou county government wants to develop a big hotel there but just this month the Rishi Township Office successfully made administrative reappeal against the declaration of the council of indigenous peoples regarding Shao people's traditional territories basically is it being validated so here I quote not because I have approved it but to show you that the kind of discriminatory mindset that high people usually have the Nantou County magistrate Mr Lee Min-shun said that is it right to let Shao people which has a population of more than 290 people restrict or determine the activities of local and central governments especially the Rishi Township which has I don't know 15, 19, sorry, about around 20,000 people, high people so should we let a small number of indigenous people to determine how we develop the area so the case highlights practical difficulties and confusions concerning indigenous traditional territories and the need for environmental NGOs because they have received little support from other national environmental NGOs I think who really shouldn't further engage with the indigenous activists but this is, I would suggest this is not just about Rishi Township it's if you look at Taiwan and indeed across the globe as a whole indigenous people actually minority in this sense so how to ensure their rights would be a very difficult task indeed now I've made a few suggestions regarding how to improve indigenous environmental relations in Taiwan first is that it is desirable for environmental groups and in society in general as well understanding of indigenous issues, cultures and history forming a stronger basis for collaborative work and second is that the central government really need to take steps to clarify how to implement indigenous peoples basic load especially regarding free prior and informed consent of indigenous communities because no one is doing this right now because people don't know how to do it or when to do it and I will talk about that tomorrow anyways during the environmental impact assessment now changes in legal and bureaucratic frameworks and monitoring arrangements are needed to achieve sustainable wildlife management with indigenous support which is very important if we want harmonious ethnic relations in the highlands now finally I would suggest that we should move beyond the economy environment this may sound quite academic or abstract but I think it's a very important paradigmatic change if we try to think of if we try to search for pathways towards this level of social development for all, not just for the hand people as we just saw in the issue township case then you would take indigenous concerns seriously and asking how development project can be planned prior to implementation there will be more sensitive to indigenous culture needs and with this reflections I conclude my presentation today, I hope that will be helpful to you, thank you that was fantastic Tengels you covered a huge amount of ground there with policy suggestions historical review that's a fascinating case study, some of which we are quite familiar to us and others I've got all the questions but let me just limit myself just to one, I was curious whether you would comment a little bit about the role of indigenous elected politicians in this relationship between the environment and the pack or PhD dissertation I see to remember that one of the key characters in your study on the national park case that you looked at was Galgin Sume who is quite a well known indigenous legislator and she played a key role there to what extent and if we think about town's population the proportion of indigenous legislators is higher than the total population so we have six indigenous legislators while the total indigenous population is 2% do they really represent indigenous interests on these issues I will begin with the final the last question, should I really represent the indigenous interests while does MPs in the UK really represent the interests of the people there so we all have a strange convoluted publics but it's a good thing that you mentioned Galgin Sume she was a very peculiar character a very strong woman but also a very persistent China centered indigenous politician so I can say it's a very it's not that straightforward because traditionally indigenous electorate tended to support the county and the county is much more pro-development and very often ignoring indigenous interests so I'll ask you again do MPs really represent people's interests but I think in recent years I can mention to for example indigenous that has happened since Galgin since Galgin I think after the transition got elected oppositional party can use all sorts of issues that indigenous included to to blame the government the ruling party doesn't mean they really care about the indigenous interests sometimes they just use this occasion I think this is too personal personal observation but I think Galgin people would criticize her for being a bit showy that they take indigenous people and it's national shrine asking the Japanese ancestor to be removed from the shrine but I think other politicians within the DPP and the county as well in recent years they have done hard work consending indigenous basic law and traditional territories mapping I think it's quite clear that some indigenous politicians were not keen to reflect to represent indigenous interests while others may use issues to blame the ruling party and so on OK, let's open up some questions I'm speaking as a royal scot I have never been cooked by a British imperialism so the issues that you raise or the indigenous situation in Taiwan raised the domination by external power the loss of disposition of land, the loss of language obviously resonate with me but they also resonate around the world two weeks ago the French paper was borned there was a two page article and it really was two pages of writing no large photos about the Panang or a group of an indigenous group on the island of Borneo 80% of their forest has been locked a lot of it illegally and at the present time they have a barricade which they are mapping to prevent further deforestation obviously it's part of Malaysia which is much more authoritarian regime than presently in Taiwan usually the police are sent in to physically take down such barricades this time that hasn't been done because there's been a change of governor in the area currently and he's taking a more responsible view I would say so anyway these issues don't just exist in Taiwan but I want to ask questions it's something that I can't resolve myself Pythagoras said that one day killing an animal will be seen in the same way killing a human being Leonardo da Vinci said killing each other I have a great respect for indigenous cultures very supportive of them and the idea of self-determination and self-sufficiency I also strongly advocate but increasingly in the 25th century it is becoming recognised that animals do have skills sensibilities intelligences and emotions so I find it hard to reconcile that hunting is you know just part of culture to be protected please help me reconcile and my position and I presume that is probably one of the reasons why the environmental groups are so uncomfortable with this idea about legalising hunting especially in Buddhist groups ah right ok B were you going to yes thank you very much ok thank you very much because it is a fascinating topic I was struck by what you said when you talk about the Japanese period that the bond between the indigenous peoples and the land were broken and I am really quite struck by this fact that it is true I really want to know a little bit more could you for example what is the condition now what is the condition now how is the bond between the people and the land and also because all these from Japanese to the Akamti or now the regimes have not done too much about to try to improve or to amend this kind of broken bond so but why it got stronger at least I feel the desire to rebuild this bond seem to be stronger could you elaborate a little bit about this thank you first regarding hunting I probably don't have a definite answer to your question but I do believe in my reading of the genius literature and when I speak their thoughts actually they agree with you animals have feelings sensibilities so for them it's not exactly immoral to kill them and as you know in the old days it was due to survival their subsistence economy so far as I know hunting was there a crucial component in their culture because for example it's a kind of ride of passage a boy has to become hunter become to be a man and that is not going to be that requirement is not going to be downgraded let's put it that way so if you are part of the genius tribe and you want to be a kind of full male member the quickest way is to become an effective hunter and also hunting would require a lot of ecological knowledge about the area so that's why actually these hunters they may know more about or certain dimensions of the local ecology more so than scientists because they interact with animals they are first contact with animals and so on so they really know the species condition as for whether they should be prohibited from hunting that's a question I guess I cannot answer and all I can say is as of now the demand to legalize in the genius hunting is very strong in Taiwan it's very vocal support from indigenous communities and I think more people in Taiwan are acknowledging that indigenous hunting is not necessarily a bad thing it was a bad thing it was being viewed as a bad thing because as I said when the economy took off the Han people as you know love to eat all sorts of things like rare modern animals so they got those rare animals through indigenous hunters so there was a kind of a market a chain of production there but these days I think since the 80s you know in Taiwan people now lay more emphasis on yangshun or your own physical well-being by eating I don't know less meat or whatever being a vegetarian and so on so the market demand went down these days so indigenous hunting came back to their the level prior to that market boom for rare modern animals so that amount is not that much to be honest and it can be as I said some other scholars have argued that it's actually a way to regulate the number so it isn't that such a bad thing plus we're talking about an island where death penalty is still legal so anyways now second concerning the the bond between indigenous lanes between indigenous people and their lanes I hope I have conveyed well that I should also mention actually talk about indigenous people the planes indigenous people the cooked ones were more or less invisible here because they sort of became part of the Han Chinese the general the blood Han Chinese but they remain indigenous as well now the bond so when we talk about that we're probably talking about island tribes okay now as I said I think this proclamation this imposition of state ownership probably is the most crucial in breaking off the bond as to the revival of such bond I would suggest that I think maybe Professor Gondolaens talk about this we need to the Han society really need to have a better understanding about what traditional territories means it doesn't mean we have tended to see land in the light of ownership property rights so Han people were very afraid that once they are declared traditional territories so no more development will be allowed and so on and so forth but from my experience talking to indigenous groups they very often emphasize that first development projects ought to be more sensitive to indigenous culture you shouldn't build a hotel where the ancestral graves on the location of their ancestral graves so for example that's one example and so if you can if the Han society have a better understanding of what traditional territories means they have less fear about it and more tolerant of indigenous cultural activities and it's actually I wouldn't say the bond is totally broken it's just like altered because their model production and their locations were very often their settlements were very often relocated so that wasn't easy for indigenous tribes but as I said they adapt and sometimes their culture changed as well I think the question right now is that they wanted to use their traditional territories as hunting grounds and other cultural practices now probably that isn't a complete acceptance of traditional territories by Han society probably isn't very easy as just shown but I think over the years we have seen much progress I can maybe put it that way we have seen much progress since the 1990s when the return of my lands movement erupted so maybe we'll see more conflicts but also more progress in the next few years we hope okay, Yefra hi thanks very much that was an excellent thought my question is is about indigenous language education so UNESCO year of indigenous languages this year and I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about the role of language education in indigenous politics particularly in reference to environmental politics well I must admit I'm not an expert on that but speaking of language it's actually interesting because I just read when I studied the subject for the chapter you know the Japanese policemen they would learn indigenous language in order to communicate with them of course to discipline them but the KMT during the KMT period authoritarian period they try to suppress the language eradicate well not just indigenous but native Taiwanese language as well so yes indigenous language revival is very important and not just for indigenous people too but for other Hakka groups it's very difficult and I think one of the issues is that it's very difficult to create words latest for indigenous language and I know some people have been doing that but it's not that easy even for Hakka language or Keja language it's already very difficult so I'm afraid that my knowledge about indigenous language education isn't very great but I can say I could add that we have had a talk on that topic of indigenous language education is that video live yet? not yet but it should be pretty soon actually the one who did our indigenous language education talk is a recent PSOAS PhD graduate and I think we've got the chapter for that one so that one is the other talk where that topic came up was when we had a session on indigenous media and some of the challenges there in other words what language do you use in indigenous TV because you have so many different languages and of course you have differences in terms of the size of groups with some pretty huge ones and some where actually the number of native speakers is almost kind of disappearing I think because of time we should continue our discussion over some why and the other thing to say of course is that same time tomorrow in the same location but still talking about environmental politics but without that well there will be some indigenous coverage there but until tomorrow let's give them another round of applause so we can continue to talk about that