China Exclusive: Environmental awakening transforms Taiwan village

Weekend mornings at Shanmei, high in the mountains of central Taiwan, burst with life. Buses full of tourists arrive and villagers sell plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables at the marketplace, even in early winter.

"The village was completely different three decades ago. Most young people had left and only the elderly and children were left behind. It was almost deserted," said Chuang Hsin-i, 50, chief of the village development council.

A highway was built through the Ali Mountains in the 1970s and since then, the people of Shanmei have encountered problems typical of a traditional community in the face of modernization.

Easy transportation brought outsiders to the Ali Mountains and tea gardens and orchards replaced the deep forest. Shanmei is home to about 600 people of the Zou ethnic minority, who gradually abandoned their traditional hunting and farming lifestyle to become hired hands at big farms and construction projects owned by outsiders.

"We did not actually benefit from the improvements. Most of our people were uneducated and did not have professional skills. The only jobs we could find were hard labor," Chuang recalled.

A bigger problem was the damage the development brought to their precious forest. For generations, the nearby brook, the Dannayiku, had provided villagers with a delicacy, a fish named "Guyu".

"At that time, many outsiders came to fish in the brook. Some used electricity and poison. In the late 1980s, we could hardly find any fish in the stream," Chuang said. Back then, as a young man in his twenties, he did not see any hope for the village.

A few village elders decided to try to do something about the situation. One of them, a clergyman named Kao Cheng-sheng, was inspired by the idea of nature reserves in Africa and came up with a plan to ban fishing and, in 1989, a village meeting did so, the first community convention for conserving a water source in Taiwan.

Traditionally the Dannayiku had been divided into sections and rights over different sections went to different clans in the village. It took a lot of persuasion to convince the clan chiefs to hand their rights over to the village so that the whole watercourse could be handled together.

All male villagers aged from 18 to 50 assigned patrol duties to watch for poachers. Villagers also brought Guyu fry from deeper valleys in the mountain.

"Villagers did not see the points of fishing ban at the beginning, but many came around. We have a deep-rooted tradition of valuing the gifts of nature," said Chuang, one of the earliest proponents of the scheme. "The plan also gave villagers a common purpose and united them."

The silver fish survived and prospered and the Dannayiku was gradually restored to match its name which means "worry-free" in the Zou language.

The ban is still strictly enforced. Villagers no longer share the patrol work as there is now a full-time squad, four people in the day and five at night. The whole village organizes a campaign every three years.

The idea of environmental protection has been extended from the stream valley to the surrounding forest. The village development council openly refuses commercial development in the surrounding area.

With the environment improving, Shanmei gained a reputation for a beautiful natural environment and attracted more and more visitors to watch fish and butterflies. Some villagers turned their houses into guesthouses and opened restaurants while others organize short tours to watch the wildlife.

An Bing-yao, a village elder, always dresses up for his part-time job as a guide, wearing a red shirt with a necklace of boar's teeth and a headdress of feathers.

Once the most skillful hunter in the village, he now takes city kids to set traps for boar or wild birds. He also teaches young villagers how to hunt.

"Although we do not hunt on such a large scale as before, it is good to pass on traditional knowledge to future generations," he said.

More and more young people are choosing to stay at home. An's five children all took jobs in the village.

"I have 12 grandchildren and I see them every week. This is a good life, one I did not expect," said the old hunter.

Shanmei villagers did not expect a second wave of tourism business when the ban on mainland tourists to Taiwan were lifted in 2008. The Ali Mountains are one of the island's most popular tourist destinations and received 3.6 million mainland tourists last year. Shanmei turned into a stop for mainland tourists to experience local life.

"On the busiest day in October, we received 60 tourist buses, a bit overwhelming for us," said An Li-hua, the village head. Endi