Taiwan’s Natural Treasures

In sweltering summer heat we visit the Endemic Species Research Institute (ESRI) in Jiji, Nantou County. In the garden next to the laboratory of the institute’s Division of Botany, pastel purple Philippine ground orchids (Spathoglottis plicata) are blossoming in the sunshine. This endangered plant, which is native to Lanyu (Orchid Island), is on the Red List of Vascular Plants of Taiwan. When Typhoon Tembin struck Taiwan in 2012, a landslide in the orchid’s habitat beside Dongqing Creek dramatically reduced its population, so that at one point there were only two plants remaining.

Li Chiuan-yu, an assistant research fellow at ESRI, explains the difficult process of restoring the Philippine ground orchid population. He and two other assistant research fellows, Huang Chau-ching and Chang Li-hui, formed a team and the year after the typhoon they gathered pods from the remaining plants in their natural habitat and brought them back to the lab. Over the course of two years they used tissue culture to cultivate 300 plantlets, which they carried on a five-hour climb into the mountains to replant them in their original habitat. There these vigorous orchids not only survived but flourished, and by the third year after replanting the population had exploded to over 1,000 plants. Li Chiuan-yu was very gratified with this outcome, and states that there are now enough plants to consider taking the Philippine ground orchid off the Red List.

Li Chiuan-yu went to Lanyu to work on restoring the population of the Philippine ground orchid, giving the species a new lease on life. (courtesy of ESRI)

With successful restoration of the Philippine ground orchid, there are hopes that it can be removed from Taiwan’s Red List of endangered species. (photo by Li Chiuan-yu)

The ecological basis for human survival

Conservation work for any threatened or endangered species demands great amounts of time, manpower, and money. While conservation highlights the positive aspects of human conscience and morality toward all living things, one may well ask what connection there is between the survival of these creatures and that of the human race, and whether their preservation is worth the effort.

Biologist Chao Jung-tai, formerly deputy director of the Taiwan Forestry Research Institute, broadens my perspective. He mentions that in 2019 the UK Treasury commissioned the Cambridge University economist Partha Dasgupta to undertake a study of the economic implications of biodiversity. This work was published in 2021 as a 600-page report entitled The Economics of Bio­diversity: The Dasgupta Review. The review points out that under the traditional model of economic development, people have ignored the costs paid in “natural capital,” and says that the Earth is suffering catastrophic losses and the situation must be remedied immediately.

Chao takes out pen and paper and draws two simple images. The first shows three intersecting circles representing “ecology,” “economy,” and “society.” “In the past this was generally the way we thought about the world.” The other image is a pyramid, with “ecology” at the bottom, “society” in the middle, and “economy” at the top. “Today we should change our outlook to this. Although ecology does not necessarily have any direct economic value for human beings, it is the basis for the existence of all humankind,” concludes Chao.

Some 60 researchers work at the Endemic Species Research Institute, researching Taiwan’s native flora and fauna and providing environmental education. Shown here are Chang Li-hui (front, left), Cheng Hsi-chi (front, right), Huang Chau-ching (rear, left), and Li Chiuan-yu (rear, right)

Biodiversity island

Taiwan is an island country with a land area of only 36,000 square kilometers, located at the eastern edge of the Eurasian tectonic plate. It has plants from two floristic kingdoms—the Holarctic and the Paleo­tropical—and lies at the intersection of the tropics and subtropics, straddling the Tropic of Cancer, so that it has a hot, wet climate year round. Moreover, the tectonic forces that created the island have bestowed upon it a topography with a height differential of almost 4,000 meters from sea level to the summit of Yushan (Mt. Jade), the highest peak in Northeast Asia. This dramatically varied geographic environment provides a stage for the existence of a wide variety of life forms.

Furthermore, Taiwan was not covered by glaciers during the last ice age, and its central position in the East Asian island arcs made it a Noah’s Ark for species moving along north–south or east–west routes in response to climate change. After the end of the last ice age, these species relocated to higher elevations in Taiwan’s mountains, and through long-term isolation and the forces of evolution they became Taiwanese endemic species. Examples include relict species like the Formosan salamander (Hynobius formosanus) and the Formosan landlocked salmon (Oncorhynchus masou ­formosanus).

Through the multiplier effect of the above factors, Taiwan became a place with a high level of bio­diversity. According to American ecological scholar Peter Raven, president emeritus of the Missouri Botanical Garden, there are some 200,000 to 250,000 living species on the island of Taiwan, including many that have yet to be discovered and named. In terms of the ratio of species to land area, though Taiwan accounts for only about 0.02% of the world’s total land area, it boasts some 3.8% of the world’s species, making the ­ratio 150 times higher than the world average. Even more remarkable is the number of marine species, accounting for about 10% of the global total, which is 361 times higher than the world average.

Chao Jung-tai believes that the human capacity for innovation can create a win–win situation for mankind and nature and make sustainable coexistence possible.

The Formosan flying fox (Pteropus dasymallus formosus) is a kind of fruit bat that is found in Hualien City. Though inconspicuous, these fruit-eating animals are a keystone species for the maintenance and colonization of forest ecosystems. (photo by Cheng Hsi-chi)

Conservation and sustainable use

With such abundant natural endowments, Taiwan of course has many more treasures than most people imagine. For example, the Philippine ground orchid restored by ESRI is seen by the Tainan District ­Agricultural Research and Extension Station as having economic potential, and through selective hybridization they have cultivated four new varieties (Tainan Nos. 1–4), which they are promoting for cultivation as ornamental plants. 

Lanyu is also home to a precious native animal, the miniature Lanyu pig. This ancient pig variety, which migrated to Taiwan from maritime Southeast Asia during the last ice age, is very suited to experimental use in the biomedical field because of its robust genetic health, giving it great potential for commercial applications and attracting attention from foreign scientists. However, because it was long crossbred with commercial pig breeds, its original genetic makeup was diluted. In order to replicate the traits of the original pure breed, the Livestock Research Institute of the Council of Agriculture spent more than 40 years doing restoration work and announced its success in 2021.

Chao Jung-tai explains the special role that mankind plays in the natural world from the perspective of innovation. From selective breedng of animals and plants, which has been practiced since ancient times, to the most cutting-edge biotechnology, biomedicine, and biopharmaceuticals, in fact these all involve humans taking something from nature and continually improving it. “Innovative technology not only is positive for biodiversity, it can benefit humankind and achieve the goal of sustainable development.”

The leopard cat (Prionailurus bengalensis chinensis), Taiwan’s only surviving wild feline, has attracted increasing attention thanks to the rise of conservation consciousness. (courtesy of ESRI)

From the mountains to the sea, Taiwan’s rich biodiversity deserves to be treasured and protected. (photo by Kent Chuang)

Open data for biodiversity

Taiwan’s open and democratic society and the strong and active civic consciousness of its people provide tremendous energy for the promotion of bio­diversity.

Take open data for example. Ecological research, conservation work, and government policymaking and implementation all require scientific information and data. The Global Biodiversity Information ­Facility is currently the largest organization in the world endeavoring to promote openness and international inter­connected­ness of global biodiversity data. Shortly after the GBIF was founded, Taiwan joined as an associate participant (under the name of Chinese Taipei), and set up the Taiwan Biodiversity Information Facility (TaiBIF), which serves as an important node in the Asian region.

Moreover, in 2021 the Academia Sinica’s Bio­diversity Research Center, the Construction and Planning Agency, the Ocean Conservation Administration, the Forestry Bureau, the Taiwan Forestry Research Institute, and ESRI formed the Taiwan Biodiversity Information Alliance (TBIA), which promotes the use of Creative Commons or other public licensing methods to make data held by government agencies available to the general public.

Open data benefits both governmental and non-­governmental actors. Members of the TBIA secretariat, who have backgrounds in the life sciences, all express the same view: Field studies are labor-intensive and time-consuming, and even the most assiduous researcher can at most accumulate several decades’ worth of data. But biological research often requires information spanning many decades or even centuries to be able to see trends and changes. “If we can collate data collected by others, we can fill in the gaps across both time and space,” says Melissa Liu, content manager at TaiBIF.

The founding of the TBIA demonstrates the determination of Taiwan’s government to pursue a policy of open data, while also helping the general public to understand the achievements of government data collection and providing objective data on which to base public policy. If this data conforms to defined data standards it can also be uploaded to TaiBIF, which not only will make it accessible via GBIF but also will raise the visibility of the information.

TEIA deputy secretary-general Sun Hsiu-ju advocates for the environment in the hope of planting a seed for the next generation.

The Taiwan Environmental Information Association has been mobilizing volunteer divers to survey the health of coral reefs in the seas around Taiwan. (photo by Hsiao Yi-chen, courtesy of TEIA)

The strength of collective effort

As of July 2022, there were more than 13 million items of open data on TaiBIF, making Taiwan second only to India in that category. Eighty percent of this data comes from surveys made by members of the public. For example, for 12 years the Taiwan Environ­mental Information Association, a very active environ­mental NGO, has been cooperating with coral reef researchers to lead large groups of volunteer divers in undertaking coral reef health check-ups and surveys in the seas around Taiwan, and the enormous amount of data thereby collected has been uploaded to the TaiBIF database.

In addition to ESRI’s conservation work, in recent years it has been actively promoting citizen science. They train and educate local residents and recruit them to assist with ecological data collection and surveys. Cheng Hsi-chi, a researcher and chief secretary at ESRI, says: “Conservation work cannot be done successfully by researchers alone.”

The members of the secretariat of the Taiwan Biodiversity Information Alliance all come from government agencies. They promote open data in government in the spirit of citizen participation.

At the 2021 NASA Space Apps Challenge, the Ani’s Cuff team from Taiwan won a Best Use of Science award for “de Bugger,” a geographic bio-infoviewer that makes innovative use of open data on Taiwanese insects.