The 22nd Yellow Butterfly Festival Wish: Set Out and Reclaim the Diversity of the Countryside

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 irrigation channels into straight lines, 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 question of widespread concern.

Five years ago, the 19th Yellow Butterfly Festival, under the theme "Water and Fields, Evergreen My Village," collaborated with three elementary schools along the upper, middle, and lower reaches of the Meinong River to establish natural and cultural 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 under the theme "Satoyama" indirectly prompted the Agriculture Bureau of the Kaohsiung City Government to conduct a farmland ecosystem survey in Meinong, in the hope of extending the front line of habitat conservation from forest areas to farmland areas.

A year of solid investigation and discussion of issues ultimately culminated in the volume "Farming and Reading in the Rich Fields of Meinong," which gathered the seasonal farming calendar and common or special species of Meinong across the four seasons. During the survey period, there was also the incident of the Longdu Wild Creek soil and water conservation engineering project. Because both banks of the wild creek still retain complete riparian forest, it is a habitat for rare species such as the Rhinocypha perforata 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," which continues to pay 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 Orchard, My Aoxia Tea Garden, Guoran Hong Farm, Jingxin Farming and Food Garden, Tongxin Garden, Friendly Farmland, You Kuai Tian, and Longdu Elementary School.

To exchange more biological control methods, Professor Sun Yuan-hsun's bird laboratory from National Pingtung University of Science and Technology was also invited to provide teaching demonstrations on raptor perch installation, attracting black-winged kites to perch at fixed points, replacing rodenticides with biological control, and reducing secondary poisoning incidents of raptors; subsequently, the Environmental Protection Bureau of the Kaohsiung City Government went further by installing raptor perches in seven Green Conservation farmland areas. To bring back the pheasant-tailed jacana, once commonly seen in the countryside, Liu Hsiao-shen and Huang Shu-mei rented a plot of farmland beside Meinong Lake to create habitat for the "wave-treading fairy," adding an ecological highlight to Meinong Lake; and whether the pheasant-tailed jacana that pecks at insects in wild lotus fields can become a conservation label for wild lotus remains to be further observed.

Prelude: The Yellow Butterfly Festival and Biodiversity

In response to the conservation trend of "mainstreaming biodiversity,"(CBD COP14)which breaks away from the traditional conservation approach focused on species and habitats, and places greater emphasis on connections with the culture and society of local residents, with lively and diverse methods. After the first preparatory discussion of this year's Yellow Butterfly Festival, it was decided to inviteSecretary-General Wang Cheng-chih of the "Taiwan Wilderness Natural Communication Society," who has deep experience in conservation communication, and Dr. Tung Ching-sheng, who is promoting the "National Botanical Garden Ark Plan," 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,"where 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 their research and survey results with the public. Since then, there have been "biodiversity" themed activities 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," "Experience Sharing on Pheasant-tailed Jacana Habitat Management at Meinong Lake”、“Country Living Notes: The Diversity of Everyday Life in Meinong," as well as four Satoyama experience activities such as "Stream Survey," "Moth Night Observation," and other series activities, serving as links to various themed activities such as the Forest Concert.

Tacit Knowing: Weaving the Stage of Satoyama Diversity

In view of the need for more public participation in biodiversity conservation actions, the Meinong Yellow Butterfly Festival, now in its 24th year, has taken "Set Out - Satoyama Diversity" as the call for this year's opening activities, and uses "environmental art" as its method, inviting artists, nature guides, ecological researchers, environmental educators, eco-friendly farmers, and other different roles to guide, using nature as a stage to guide the public in interacting with the land, forming various collective creations that "pay tribute to the land," so that ecological awareness can be promoted more widely and sustainably.

For the main visual, artist Lin Yen-ling, who moved to Meinong ten years ago, was invited to create "Tacit Forest." The creatures hiding in the forest, hidden but not apparent, remind people that not seeing them does not mean they do not exist. Through "Tacit Forest," the artist invites everyone to put down the noise and quietly feel: "Close your eyes, feel the scent of the forest. Imagine: insects, fish, birds, beasts, gazing at each other deep in the forest….."

Lin Yen-ling also used the method of collective public participation in the "Borrowing Scenery - Weaving Workshop" to weave the flat "Tacit 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 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, Tetrastigma formosanum, and golden wire vine were sought, and with the needle-hook method, the images in the participants' minds: butterflies, hundred-pace snakes, owls, fish, and so on were gradually woven out, and finally jointly installed at the Mother Tree Forest Theater, opening the prologue for the Yellow Butterfly Festival.