National Parks of Taiwan

National Parks of Taiwan in Global Trends

Make a Choice: Under Turbulence

Article/ Wei-Han Li

Interviewee(s)/ Chao-Lun Chen, researcher, Biodiversity Research Center Academia Sinica Keryea Soong, researcher, Department of Oceanography, National Sun Yat-sen University Hsy-Yu Tseng, Professor, Department of Forestry, National Chung Hsing University

It has been 150 years since the U.S. established the every first national park of the world, Yellowstone National Park.Nowadays, there are more than 3,800 national parks all over the world to preserve countless representative and unique natural environment and historical sites.

However, people have found that to protect these precious resources, it is not enough for each country to fight alone.Because the influences through changes of lands, seas and even the atmospheric environment have no boundaries,and all of countries must crossing boundary work together to keep ecological and cultural treasures continuously shining on this planet.

The ten national (natural) parks in Taiwan play a pivotal role in the global conservation network and keep expanding their vision and energy in the world trend. Therefore, in this year, "National Park Quarterly" will focus on "Changing & Challenges", "Conservation & Restoration", "Management"and "Innovation" as topics of four seasons, and cut into the international forward-looking goals and current situations,and share how Taiwan's national parks ride the waves in the waves of the world.

The Alarm Bell Rings as Climate Change Sweeps Through

Seeking Solutions from Ecological Research in National Parks

Last summer, Yellowstone National Park was hit by torrential rain and flooding, the first closure due to natural disasters in 34 years. Yosemite National Park in California was hit by the “Oak Fire”, the largest in recent years; the fire reduced giant trees to ashes,leaving the park so overwhelmed that more than 6,000 people had to be emergency evacuated. Heat waves, wildfires, droughts, disappearing glaciers and rising sea levels – climate change is affecting human life in every way, and national parks around the world are not immune to it. Scientists warn that disasters caused by climate change will affect national parks’ ecologies and operations even more extensively in the coming years.

When the Countdown Begins on Melting Glaciers

The threat of extreme climate change is growing in national parks around the world. Climate change is altering ecosystems, threatening the survival of wildlife, destroying roads, buildings, and cultural resources, and affecting visitor experiences, as well as introducing invasive species and causing pollution. Facing climate change as it exists now and will exist in the future, new forms of thinking – new approaches – are needed. Developing adaptive plans, promoting ecological resilience,preser ving cultural assets, and protecting infrastructure will be the future direction for risk management that responds to climate change.

In Montana's Glacier National Park, the Park’s spectacular glaciers are losing surface area; the clock is running on when they will be completely melted. In Arizona’s Saguaro National Park,the famous cacti are dying out due to high temperatures. As the US National Park Service is facing these crises, it released the Planning for a Changing Climate handbook in 2021 to serve as the basis for a US-wide national park program.(A summary of the handbook is included in this issue's “Cover Story II” section.)

The handbook points out that long-standing management objectives and approaches may no longer be feasible, and that it is important for managers to accept substantive change and acknowledge inevitable losses. Only then can they move from “resisting” change to “accepting”change, and then “direct ing” change with innovative management techniques and tools.

Let’s Step up the Pace in the Next 10 Years

Looking beyond the United States to the rest of the world, with the global environment continuing to deteriorate due to increasing climate change and extremely low achievement rates for 2010’s Aichi Biodiversity Targets, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has launched the Nature 2030 Programme to follow up on the Aichi Targets. This Programme proposes five major strategic priorities: People, land, water, oceans, and climate.

In the area of climate, it is hoped that through the programme, we will all continue to monitor the impacts of climate change; protect ecological integrity, local communities and indigenous peoples' rights; and strengthen the rule of law and legal tools at the international level, to ensure that all countries make efforts to mitigate climate change. The programme also urges governments to implement climate change mitigation goals that are science-based, ensure policy implementation,and assure social, natural, and economic benefits.Among the six categories of the IUCN Protected Areas Classification System, the importance of national parks (which are classified as Category II) is self-evident.

With New Challenges and New Ideas, Taiwan can Help!

Taiwan's national parks are also facing the challenges of climate change: The upward retreat of alpine vegetation in Yushan National Park;the drying up of streams and water in Shei-Pa National Park, and the coral bleaching in Kenting National Park, to name a few. With crisis imminent,international appeals have been made and actions taken; for more than 10 years, the national park headquarters have also begun research themed on climate change. What follow is interviews with facilitators who have long been involved in research projects commissioned by the national park headquarters. Hopefully, through their firsthand observations and research, they can help us all to see the problems facing Taiwan's alpine and marine ecologies, and how both national parks and individuals can take action, bringing opportunities for change.

The Hope for Coral is in Kenting

A normal total amount of greenhouse gases is actually a necessity to maintain the Earth’s comfortable average temperature of about 15°C.However, since the Industrial Revolution, human emissions of greenhouse gases have increased dramatically and are now the largest contributor to climate change. Most of us think that the extreme heat of summer is felt only by terrestrial organisms,and we often ignore the condition of the oceans.“In fact, only 3-6% of the heat remains on land. As much as 94% of the heat energy is absorbed by the ocean,” says Chao-Lun Chen, who is currently a researcher at Biodiversity Research Center Academia Sinica. “You can just imagine that these marine organisms are like frogs being slowly boiled alive in warm water.”

Chen has been studying coral reef ecology for more than 30 years. In 2015, he led the three-year Sustainable Development of Taiwan's Coral Reef Ecology in the Face of Climate Change research project in Kenting, the area with the richest coral research data in Taiwan. Chen is still actively tracking and monitoring the coral reef ecology in all waters of Taiwan. “Over the past 50 to 60 years, most of the world's coral reef ecology has disappeared. If we don’t make any changes, and continue to destroy the environment and release greenhouse gases, 99% of the coral reefs will be gone by 2050.”

He emphasizes with earnest words how important the coral reef ecology is to human beings.“Nowadays, people may think of it as a potential tourist resource, but its greater contribution is that it plays a huge ecological function in the ocean. For example, its rich biodiversity can provide food and habitat for a large number of fish and other marine life, so that the offshore fisheries has enough to fish on; coral reefs also serve as breakwaters that can mitigate 70% or more of the impact of waves and prevent long-term coastline erosion; and many cultures that settle along coasts also benefit from coral reef ecologies. It’s important to know that coral has other ways to keep reproducing in the face of high temperatures and pollution – but once the ecosystems that depend on it disappear from the near-shore ocean, the ultimate impact will be on humans.” Studies show that the disappearance of coral reefs will seriously affect the lives of 500 million people worldwide.

The key to all this, of course, is continued high temperatures. “The coral bleaching caused by high temperatures is not the same as death; it’s more like a cold, and the coral can still recover. If we can keep the temperature rise within 1.5°C, 10% to 30% of the reefs should survive.” With a change in tone, Chen remains hopeful: “I hope the coral reefs in Kenting will be among those 10% to 30% of potential survivors.” This optimistic statement does not come out of nowhere; it is based on Chen's many years of observation of Kenting’s ecology.“In addition to the area having a robust coral reef ecology, Kenting is also one of the areas with the earliest human intervention. Plus, it is also a national park that includes both marine and land zones. The actions taken on land will actually be reflected in the ocean. These conditions make it easier for us to monitor the human changes and what improvements conservation can bring to the environment.”

Chen believes that the changes in Kenting in recent years show us that environmental protection cannot be mandated from the top down. “Kenting cannot be managed like Yushan or Shei-Pa; protection still has to take into account the livelihoods of the people who live there. Therefore, a collective consensus on the use of conservation can be forged by using demonstration zones and protected areas.” This approach to management brings everyone to the realization that they are symbiotic members of the ecosystem, and that if they lose the reef, they won’t be able to survive on the land either. “I'm glad to see the recent return of large fish to the area, and I haven't heard of any incidents of deliberate ecological damage by the public. In addition, Kenting National Park Headquarters is also continuing to do research in collaboration with our academic units, as well as conducting periodic general reviews to monitor the balance of all this.”

Coral bleaching

The colorfulness of coral comes from the dinophyta that live symbiotically with the coral. The symbiosis between coral and algae is a perfect ecological matchup:The symbiotic algae photosynthesize, supplying the coral with energy and oxygen; while the coral respiration produces carbon dioxide and nitrogenous waste, providing the raw material for the symbiotic algae's photosynthesis. And what’s more, this symbiotic relationship provides the ecosystem on which more than 25% of the ocean's fish population depends. However, when this intimate relationship is disrupted by environmental forces, the algae are forced to migrate or are displaced, resulting in coral bleaching. If the environment does not improve before the time runs out for the symbiotic algae to return, the coral will die.

Take a deep breath – Blue Carbon in Dongsha

Another source of critical ecological nourishment in the sea is the seagrass beds. However, since July 2014, large areas of seagrass beds in the Dongsha atoll area have been dying. This started with the northern and northeastern reefs, followed by the eastern reef in July 2015, the southern reef’s algal ridge in April 2017, and the northern reef’s algal ridge in October 2018, with the largest area of death being 9.91 square kilometers in the northern reef. Although the northern, northeastern,and eastern reefs have gradually recovered, the death of seagrass beds on such a large scale is still a warning sign that must be addressed, and the possibility of a direct correlation with climate change must be explored. Therefore, the Marine National Park Headquarters commissioned Keryea Soong from the Department of Oceanography at National Sun Yat-sen University to conduct a “Research Study of Seagrass Bed Changes at Dongsha Atoll”, and monitor the seagrass bed ecology in the area to find out what was causing the changes.

“The reason for implementing this project is to investigate whether such drastic changes are a regular occur rence, or whether there is an increasing trend,” says Soong. “If convincing scientific evidence can be found to pinpoint the cause, government agencies can be more proactive and prescribe the right remedies to help ecological restoration.” Soong discusses the study’s aims, and the difficulties involved: “The Dongsha atolls are remote and very large, so it's not easy to get a full picture of the situation.Fortunately, we have the help of satellite technology – Sentinel, from the European Union – which provides a global satellite image every five days.This way, we can see the sea area of Dongsha Atoll. It’s like being able to have people personally inspect an entire 500 square-kilometer area on a regular basis. It’s extremely beneficial to monitoring the growth and decline of the seagrass bed. Of course, this technology is not without limitations; it may only allow us to see the large-scale changes,and technical breakthroughs are still pending for early detection of subtle, local changes.”

However, to Soong's relief, the investigation pointed to an unexpected result. “High temperatures are indeed a driving force behind the death of seagrass beds – but the main cause of seagrass death is lack of oxygen. Because seagrass is quite heat-tolerant, increased water temperature alone should not be enough to kill it. However,high water temperatures are in fact causing a decrease in dissolved oxygen in the water;and there is insufficient biological assistance to manage grass leaves in the sea. This leaves a large amount of organic waste that breeds bacteria.Bacterial decomposition of organic matter requires enormous quantities of oxygen, so this leads to a serious lack of oxygen in the seawater, resulting in the death of a large number of seagrass beds.”

Even if it's just a possibility, Soong still considers this to be exciting news. “If high water temperatures are the main cause of seagrass mortality, I'm afraid that even a national effort would not be able to help – extreme high temperatures are a global problem.

But oxygen deficits are localized phenomena,and we can still try to help improve it with specific actions. For example, we can work with the Coast Guard Administration to tighten management of fishing activities in the area, and try to restore the population of grass-eaters.”

However, Soong understands that economics and ecology must not be at odds with each other;instead, the question is how to strike a balance. He places his hopes for change on the support of the broader community. This makes the Marine National Park, with its responsibility for conservation and education, all the more important. He hopes that his team's findings will be understood by more people, who will then make small changes in their daily habits. Soong is confident that, eventually,small changes will add up to a big step forward.

The Alpine Climate Research in Yushan

Professor Hsy-Yu Tseng, Department of Forestry at National Chung Hsing University, is another person who also holds great hopes for the wider public.As a long-time researcher in alpine ecologies, and following on from research in Sheipa National Park,Tseng also collaborated with the Yushan National Park Headquarters to lead the “ Impacts of Climate Change on Alpine Plant Phenology along the Yushan Peak Line”project.“In recent years,climate change has not only become extremely large, but also more frequent,”Tseng notes.“We can no longer talk about ‘once-in-a-century events’,because extreme phenomena are occurring every few years. The interval has become so short that it is almost impossible for organisms to adapt.”Worried, Tseng continues: “The animals and insects that inhabit the mountains may be able to move as the temperature rises, but what about the plants?"

Temperature once provided a clear schedule for alpine ecosystems; plants would follow cyclical changes in seasonal temperature to determine when to bloom, when to bear fruit, and when to go dormant for the winter. But now, due to extreme climate changes, temperatures no longer rise and fall according to the normal seasons. This results in serious disruptions to plants' physiological clocks.Tseng explains, “For example, once winter begins,if the temperature is still high, the plant will delay dormancy, continue to bloom, and even bear fruit;but if the temperature then suddenly drops, the plant will lack sufficient heat, and that will result in a failure to reproduce.”

Tseng continues: “As another example, when it’s spring – time to sprout – yet it suddenly snows in May, the plant's most fragile flower buds will be exposed to freezing temperatures, and they die. Abnormality in or failure to flower and fruit can result in insufficient food sources for other organisms to migrate. And then, those other plants that rely on migrating organisms to transmit their pollen and fruit seeds now lack a medium of transmission, and they are unable to produce the next generation. This is a chain reaction. So,temperature increases are not just a change of one or two degrees in some data. They are a shock to the whole ecosystem.”

In addition to high temperatures, the accompanying droughts are an even greater threat. “The 2021 drought was one of the most painful experiences in Taiwan,” Tseng says. “The prolonged drought has not only led to a lack of water for living organisms and plants, but also indirectly contributed to large scale pests and diseases that had previously been rare, such as the Lochmaea sp. beetle, and even increased chances of forest fires and extents of damage.” Tseng believes that it is important for the public to witness these phenomena; only then will they deeply sense that the situation cannot be ignored.

In the project, the team took the example of the extremely temperat ure-sensitive Yushanrhododendron (Rhododendron pseudochrysanthum Hayata ), and recorded their flowering sequence and conditions through timelapse photography over the past three years. These make the changes in the rhododendrons plain to see. “Our research not only helps the authorities formulate policy; we also hope that our involvement will bring the public a feel for what is happening.We are not only focusing on Shei-Pa and Yushan National Parks; we are also getting a foothold in Mount Hehuan, a place very popular with tourists,as a research base. This way, more people can understand how the places they have visited are changing, and what effects their actions have on local areas.”

These inter views make it deeply clear that “envi ronmental protect ion is ever yone's responsibility” cannot just be an empty phrase. Can we fix climate change? This is not a phenomenon that can be altered by one country alone. But all three of these researchers believe that the mindset that we all have when we go into the ocean or go into the forest, and the perceptions we have when we use marine and forest resources, are key factors that will affect the future of the environment.Therefore, every one of them hopes that their research, in collaboration with government organizations, will become more accessible to the wider public through the National Parks. Making this understanding accessible to all of us can become the spark that ignites the passion for environmental protection.