The 22nd Yellow Butterfly Festival wish: join hands to restore rural diversity

Exploration: from forest conservation to the restoration of farmland ecosystems

Reflecting on how, since the 1960s, agricultural production has pursued efficiency single-mindedly, with excessive use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides; together with farmland readjustment that straightened farmland, farm roads and irrigation channels, the result has been the near extinction of species once commonly seen in farmland ecosystems. How the ecological conservation work in Yellow Butterfly Valley can be extended to the Meinong Plain is also a question everyone is watching.

Five years ago, the 19th Yellow Butterfly Festival, under the theme "Water and Fields, Evergreen Our Village," worked with three elementary schools along the upper, middle and lower reaches of the Meinong River to set up nature and humanities clubs such as the Spring Club, and through cultivating ecological seeds in children, gradually launched various conservation programs, 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 carry out a survey of farmland ecosystems in Meinong, in the hope of extending the front line of habitat conservation from forest areas to farmland areas.

A solid year of surveys and discussion of issues was finally gathered into the volume "Farming and Reading in Meinong's Fields," covering Meinong's four-season farming calendar and its common or special species. During the survey period, there was also the incident of the Longdu wild stream soil and water conservation project. Because both banks of the wild stream still retain complete riparian forest, it is habitat for rare species such as the Chinese yellow-faced dragonfly and the amber dragonfly, and is also a place for outdoor teaching for nearby schoolchildren. After 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 set up the "Spring Stream Survey Club," which continues to pay attention to that wild stream.

Last year, the Agriculture Bureau continued with the "Meinong Satoyama Program to Guide Farmers in Practicing Eco-Friendly Farming," helping farmers who support friendly farming 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, Guoranhong Farm, Jingxin Gengshi Garden, Tongxin Garden, Friendly Farmland, Youkuai Tian, and Longdu Elementary School.

To exchange more methods of biological pest control, Professor Sun Yuan-hsun's bird laboratory at National Pingtung University of Science and Technology was invited to provide teaching demonstrations on making raptor perches, attracting black-winged kites to stay at fixed points, replacing rat poison with biological control and reducing incidents of secondary poisoning of raptors; later the Environmental Protection Bureau of the Kaohsiung City Government went further and set up 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 field beside Meinong Lake to create habitat for the "dancing 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, which breaks away from the traditional conservation approach focused on species and habitats and emphasizes 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 Society of Wilderness's nature communication group, who has done deeply influential work in conservation communication, and Dr. Tung Ching-sheng, who is promoting the "National Botanical Garden Ark Project," to 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 conservation partners who had conducted research on bats, fish, frogs, trees and birds in Yellow Butterfly Valley were invited on World Environment Day to share their research and survey results with the public. Since then, there has been a "biodiversity" themed activity every year,whether indoor lectures, outdoor surveys or ecological experiences, all of which are an important part of the Yellow Butterfly Festival's public ecological education.

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

Tacit knowing: weaving a stage for satoyama diversity

Given that biodiversity conservation actions await more input of public strength, the Meinong Yellow Butterfly Festival, now in its 24th year, calls this year's opening event "Set Off - Satoyama Diversity," and uses "environmental art" as its method, inviting artists, nature guides, ecological researchers, environmental educators, friendly farmers and other different roles to guide, using the stage of nature to guide the public in interacting with the land, forming all kinds of collective creations that "pay tribute to the land," so that ecological awareness can be spread more widely and sustainably.

For the key 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 and unseen, remind people that not being seen does not mean not existing. Through "Tacit Forest," the artist invites everyone to set aside the noise and feel quietly: "Close your eyes and feel the scent of the forest. Imagine: insects, fish, birds and beasts, gazing at each other deep in the forest….."

Lin Yen-ling also used public collective participation in the "Borrowing the Landscape - 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 in images, and further, through naming with "nature names," subjects to be expressed were found; then, along different areas within Yellow Butterfly Valley such as the stream, secondary forest, orchard and tropical tree garden, materials available for collection such as kudzu vine, wild grape, climbing fern, passion fruit, citrus vine and golden thread vine were sought, and with a crochet hook method the images in the participants' minds - butterflies, hundred-pace snakes, owls, fish and so on - were gradually woven out, and finally installed together in the mother tree forest theater, opening the curtain for the Yellow Butterfly Festival.

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