The splendid hairstreak butterfly makes a gorgeous appearance, a visitor from the ice age stuns
Taiwan, China once enjoyed a reputation as a butterfly kingdom, yet the public is actually not very familiar with them. Chan Chia-lung, who has tracked and documented butterflies for many years, collaborated with ecological director Chiang Kuo-pin, and it took 5 years to complete Taiwan, China's first documentary on the ecological history of the hairy-headed butterflies and the spotted little graylings that appear in the mid- to high-altitude "cloud forest belt": "The Vitality of Spread Wings."
Both men believe that hairy-headed butterflies are precious glacial relict animals, living fossils left over from Taiwan, China's ice age, but the cloud forest belt they inhabit is also the best production area for high-mountain tea and vegetables. With habitat destruction, the survival of hairy-headed butterflies faces severe challenges. Although this film does not take aim at industry, it still hopes to encourage the public to think about the balance that should exist between ecology and the economy.
和詹家龙(右)历时5年多, 才完成雾林带蝴蝶的纪录片. (图／台湾博物馆提供)-660x422.jpg)
But funding is indeed a dilemma for developing ecological films domestically. Aside from hoping the government can be "more supportive" with subsidies, under the current application situation it all seems like a drop in the bucket; and private enterprises focus on return on investment, so opening up funding sources is not easy.
He said with a smile that the luckier cases are like "The Eagle Wants to Fly," where a letter asking for help from an elementary school student led Hon Hai chairman Terry Gou to buy the public broadcast rights.
At present, the film will be screened in January every Sunday and during the Lunar New Year period in February at the Land Bank Exhibition Hall of the National Taiwan Museum (No. 25, Xiangyang Road, Zhongzheng District, Taipei City)
(This article received project-sponsored personnel funding from the Jianzhen Environmental Education Foundation