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Welcome to my portfolio ¤¤¤å (need a Chinese web browser?)
Personal Statement: My
work about Conservation of Nonhuman Beings in Taiwan
I am interested in what nature
means to a society, especially a so-call "green" society holding ecological
sustainability and social justice. Usually our understanding on nature in this modern era is from science. From my
childhood, I love to learn everything about general science. In my high-school years,
I had my first-time personal experience of scientific projects
by developing a "Special Crystal Cells in Magnetic Field" experiment with
the advice of my high school teacher. By presenting my results and analysis, I was
awarded the First prize in 1989 in the National Science Exhibition competition of
Taiwan and third prize in 1988. In college, I started to explore my scientific interests
as a biologist. I was admitted to the Department of Biological Science at National
Taiwan Normal University, Taipei, as a gifted student in 1991. In the early years
of my college period, I had a strong interest in laboratory investigation. I was
also awarded a 2-year educational project by the National Council of Science in Taiwan
and participated in a botanical research at the Institute of Botany, Academia Sinica,
Taiwan. My personal project focused on the application of in-situ hybridization for
rice protein.
In my senior year of college, I was actively involved in a wide range
of wildlife field projects, such as Formosan
Sika Deer (Cevvus nippon taiouanus ) Recovery Project in Taiwan. I
was a research assistant for the study of foraging ecology and habitat selection
of this extirpated deer. Based on my 1.5-year field data, I published two papers
in the Biological Bulletin of National Taiwan Normal University about "Seasonal
Changes of Foraging Behavior of the Sika Deer" and "Food Habits of Sika
Deer". I also presented the results in national and international conferences,
such as the spoken paper "Seasonal Foraging Strategies and its Conservation
Implication of Sika Deer" in the 2nd Animal Behavior Conference of Taiwan, and
a poster paper about "Application of the Jogging Meter to Recovered Sika Deer"
in the 3rd International Deer Conference, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK. However, I found
my interests evolved from a focus on animal behavior and ecology toward a greater
emphasis on conservation issues.
After I graduated from the university, I worked as a biology teacher
in a high school in an agricultural county in Taiwan, but I was still involved in
a number of conservation researches. For example, I
was the research assistant for the study on foraging ecology and population dynamics
of the endangered Black-Faced Spoonbill (Threskiornithidae
minor ). In 1996, I participated in a research project of Green
Sea Turtle (Chelonia mydas ) in Lanyu Island, Taiwan. I was also a
special executive for coordinating a 3-month ecotourism workshop at Iratai, and conducted
an educational program for the Yami Tribal Center at Iraralai, Lanyu. Working on
conservation-development dilemma, I realized environmental issues always confronted
conflicts of societal action between human welfare and ecological integrity. I decided
to go abroad to enrich my conservation perspectives with insights from other different
disciplines. Fortunately, I was accepted as a graduate student in the Conservation
Biology Program at the University of Minnesota (US) in 1998.
My graduate work started from a MS project about integrated geographical
analysis that estimated the potential habitat of Formosan Sika Deer in Taiwan. I
took a wide variety of classes and seminars in ecology, environmental science, anthropology,
and sociology to shape my proposed dissertation work in the future. I decide my research
core will focus on human-dominated landscapes, especially agroecosystems which contain
vast biodiversity that maintain human sociocultural activities. Such an agroecosystem,
including forests, fallow, farmland and villages embedded in landscape matrix as
a whole, provides an excellent opportunity to understand how societies impact on
biodiversity and living resources, as well as how biodiversity is managed or lost
through the knowledge of local resource management system.
Human survival and welfare ultimately depend on the integrated development of natural
resources in which human land uses and livelihoods are compatible with the maintenance
of biological diversity, ecological services, evolutionary processes, and ecosystem
functions.
Below is my CV-like catalog of conservation projects I involved before...
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Why to conserve endangered species? Who decides it? Who gets
benefits and who bears costs? How would it move toward biodiversity and ecosystem
conservation?
In 1993-4, I was a research assistant to participate the re-introduction project
of Formosan Sika Deer (Cervus nippon <English
>; <Chinese>) in
Kenting National Park, Taiwan. I studied the ecology and behavior of recovered deer
in the wild, and explored the dynamics between deer, vegetation and geomorph in a
spatial scale. I worked on the potential habitat estimation
of the deer recovery by using Geographical Information System (GIS) to analyze the
food and habitat selection... |
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What does environmental sustainability mean to different people
with interest conflicts? Is that possible for a society to seek a decision or agreement?
In 1995, I worked on an endangered large shorebird, Blackfaced
Spoonbill (Threskiornithidae minor <English
>; <Chinese >)
. This beautiful spoonbills spend their winter in the largest lagoon of Taiwan, where
is inhabited 2/3 of the worldwide population. The local communities have a sustainable
fishery for a long time. But this land is also a site of industrial park in economic
development project... |
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How do local people interpret conservation and environment
in their cultural context? Can conservation be more holistic and culturally sensitive?
Can ecological politics empower local people?
In 1996-1997, I participated in an ecological research to study the reproductive
status of the Green Sea Turtle(Chelonia mydas <English >; <Chinese
>) at Pongso no Tao (Lanyu), Taiwan.
This intensive ecological study focused on how conservation practices for sea turtles
impact local native egg-eating snakes (Oligodon formosanus
<English >). I learned a lot of conservation
experience from the indigenous Tao people, and we also had an ecotourism workshop,
which tried to find a way to sustain natural resource by benefiting local communities... |
Conservation science is an effort to integrate disciplines between natural and social
science to preserve biodiversity. My previous works impressively push me to imagine
a general picture of green societies
in both ideal types and practices.
(want to use on-line key?)
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Biodiversity can be treated as an environmental end point to refer all variations
on the Earth, and an environmental indicator for ecosystem functioning.
What happens when nature meets with culture? How does a society manage their living
resources? Is environmental knowledge culturally shaped? Do they concern human impacts
to other life forms?
Most subsistence communities like Tao people in Lanyu coexist with a significant
biodiversity heritage historically. Development / Conservation issues are social
constructs, since human activities used to play an important role to interfere or
sustain biodiversity. I apply many index in my study such as ants in agroforestry and snails and taro
in agriecosystem of Lanyu to explore the following interdependent ideas: culturally-shaped
conservation, societal and institutionalized mechanism and functioning biodiversity.
But while embedding in the modernizing process and global capitalist system, the
society usually encounters a variety of development / conservation issues, such as
biodiversity loss linked with poverty, environmental degradation and cultural dissolution.
My concern is what is the future trend and ultimate fate of
our environment and society? |
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