The 22nd Yellow Butterfly Festival wish: Let's rediscover the diversity of the countryside together

Exploration: From forest conservation to the restoration of farmland ecosystems

Reflecting on how, since the 1960s, agricultural production has blindly pursued efficiency and overused chemical fertilizers and pesticides; combined with farmland readjustment that has straightened farmland, farm roads, and waterways, species once commonly seen in farmland ecosystems have now become nearly extinct. How to extend the ecological conservation work in the Yellow Butterfly Valley to the Meinong Plain is also a issue of concern to everyone.

Five years ago, the 19th Yellow Butterfly Festival, under the theme "Water and Fields, Evergreen My Village," collaborated with three elementary schools in the upper, middle, and lower reaches of the Meinong River to establish nature and humanities clubs such as the Spring Creek Club. Through nurturing children as ecological seeds, various conservation programs were gradually launched, strengthening the cultural foundation of community ecology. That year's series of developments themed around "satoyama" indirectly prompted the Agriculture Bureau of the Kaohsiung City Government to conduct a survey of farmland ecosystems in Meinong, hoping to extend the front line of habitat conservation from forest areas to farmland areas.

After a solid year of investigation and discussion of issues, the seasonal farming calendar and common or special species of Meinong across the four seasons were finally compiled into the volume "Farming and Reading in Meinong's Fields." During the survey period, there was also an incident involving a soil and water conservation engineering project on the Longdu Wild Creek. Because both banks of the wild creek still retain a complete riparian forest, it is a habitat for rare species such as the Rhipidolestes aculeatus and the amber dragonfly, and is also a place for outdoor education for nearby schoolchildren. Through coordination and communication, the Soil and Water Conservation Bureau was prompted to revise the project to reduce the scope of ecological impact, and it also prompted that elementary school to establish the "Spring Creek Stream Survey Club" to continue paying attention to that wild creek.

Last year, the Agriculture Bureau continued with the "Meinong Satoyama Program to Guide Farmers in Implementing Eco-Friendly Farming Methods," assisting farmers who support friendly farming to obtain the "Green Conservation Label." Through the efforts of the guidance team, as of now, eight farmers have been assisted in passing the Green Conservation Label certification. These include: Yuanmengyuan Natural Ecological Vegetable and Fruit Garden, My Aoxia Tea Garden, Guoranhong Farm, Jingxin Gengshi Garden, Tongxin Garden, Friendly Farmland, Youkuai Tian, and Longdu Elementary School.

In order to exchange more biological pest control methods, Professor Sun Yuan-hsun's bird laboratory at National Pingtung University of Science and Technology was also invited to provide teaching demonstrations on raptor perches, attracting black-winged kites to stay at fixed points, replacing rodenticides with biological control, and reducing incidents of secondary poisoning of raptors; subsequently, the Environmental Protection Bureau of the Kaohsiung City Government further invested in setting up raptor perches in seven Green Conservation farmland areas. In order to bring back the pheasant-tailed jacana commonly seen in the countryside in the past, Liu Hsiao-shen and Huang Shu-mei rented a field next to Meinong Lake to create habitat for the "wave-riding fairy," adding an ecological highlight to Meinong Lake; and whether the pheasant-tailed jacana, which pecks at insects in wild lotus fields, can become a conservation label for wild lotus still awaits further observation.

Prelude: The Yellow Butterfly Festival and biodiversity

In response to "mainstreaming biodiversity"(CBD COP14)conservation thinking, moving beyond the traditional conservation methods of species and habitats, it also emphasizes connections with the culture and society of local residents, and its methods are lively and diverse. After the first preparatory discussion for this year's Yellow Butterfly Festival, it was decided to inviteSecretary-General Wang Cheng-chih of the "Taiwan Wilderness Society," who has done deeply influential work in conservation communication, and Dr. Tung Ching-sheng, who is promoting the "National Botanical Garden Ark Project," to come and share new perspectives on biodiversity as a reference for Meinong's conservation action plans.

The organization of biodiversity activities at the Yellow Butterfly Festival can be traced back to the 17th Yellow Butterfly Festival's "Yellow Butterfly Valley Ecological Diversity Forum,"when on World Environment Day conservation partners who had conducted research on bats, fish, frogs, trees, and birds in the Yellow Butterfly Valley were invited to share the results of their research surveys with the public. Since then, there has been a "biodiversity" themed activity every year,whether indoor lectures, outdoor surveys, or ecological experiences, all are an important part of the Yellow Butterfly Festival's public ecological education.

This year's biodiversity-themed activities planned a total of five lectures, such as "Participatory Ethnobotanical Seed Conservation," "Sharing Experience in Managing Pheasant-tailed Jacana Habitat at Meinong Lake”、“Country Living Notes: The Diversity of Everyday Life in Meinong," as well as four satoyama experience activities such as "Stream Survey" and "Moth Night Observation," serving as links connecting various themed activities such as the forest concert.

Tacit Knowing: Weaving a Stage for Satoyama Diversity

In view of the fact that biodiversity conservation actions await more investment of public power, the Meinong Yellow Butterfly Festival, which has passed through 24 years, this year's opening event uses "Set Out - Satoyama Diversity" as its call, and uses "environmental art" as its method, inviting artists, nature guides, ecological researchers, environmental education personnel, friendly farming farmers, and other guides in different roles to use the stage of nature to guide the public in interacting with the land, forming various collective creations of "paying tribute to the land," so that ecological awareness can be promoted more universally and sustainably.

For the main visual, artist Lin Yen-ling, who moved to Meinong ten years ago, was invited to create "Tacit Knowing Forest." Those creatures hiding in the forest, hidden yet not apparent, remind people that not being seen does not mean not existing. Through "Tacit Knowing Forest," the artist invites everyone to put down the clamor and quietly feel: "Close your eyes and feel the scent of the forest. Imagine: insects, fish, birds, and beasts gazing at one another deep in the forest….."

Lin Yen-ling also used the public collective participation method of the "Borrowed Landscape - Weaving Workshop" to weave the flat "Tacit Knowing Forest" into the three-dimensional "We Wove a Dream in the Trees." Through blindfolded exploration and camera games, the feelings and experiences in nature were expressed on the picture through pen and paper, and further, through naming with "nature names," themes to be expressed were identified; then, along different areas within the Yellow Butterfly Valley such as streams, secondary forests, orchards, and tropical tree gardens, materials available for collection such as kudzu vine, wild grape, climbing fern, passion fruit, Citrus tachibana vine, and Lygodium japonicum were sought, and with needle-hook methods the images in the participants' hearts: butterflies, hundred-pace snakes, owls, fish, and so on were slowly woven out, and finally jointly installed in the Mother Tree Forest Theater, opening the prologue for the Yellow Butterfly Festival ceremony.