At the Cheng Long Wetland International Environmental Art Festival, feel your connection to the environment

Editor's note: In the recently released film "Season of the Migratory Birds," quite a few scenes are set in Cheng Long Village, Kouhu Township, Yunlin County. Because of its low elevation and the groundwater pumped for aquaculture in the past, the area already had a land subsidence problem, and after the Sixth Naphtha Cracker Complex was built, the subsidence deteriorated rapidly. Many farmlands became saline marshes, and together with the grassy wetlands, ponds, fish ponds and ditches they formed the "Cheng Long Wetland."

In recent years the Forestry Bureau of the Council of Agriculture has invested in ecological restoration there, turning the wetland into a paradise for waterbirds, and invited the "Tree Observation Foundation," which has long been engaged in environmental education, to move in and work with residents on community building, making it a successful case of reversing the disadvantage in Taiwan's land subsidence areas.

The "Tree Observation Foundation" has been stationed at Cheng Long Wetland for three years, holding the "Cheng Long Wetland International Environmental Art Festival" every year, inviting artists and volunteers from all fields to gather at the wetland for environmental art creation, and using this event to discuss the future of the environment with the villagers.

The following article is the author's report after interviewing at the Cheng Long Wetland Art Festival, inviting everyone to get to know this lovely place.

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The Old Man's Mini Shuttle

"The 'Cheng Long Wetland International Environmental Art Festival' in Cheng Long Village, Kouhu Township, Yunlin County is now in its third year. After Qingming Festival, the selected artists and volunteers moved into this small village one after another and began working on their pieces. A month later, together with the adults and children of the village, they opened the art festival, began actively promoting it, and warmly welcomed visitors."………

Before I went to Cheng Long Village, I thought the opening of this article should have been like that. I also thought it should not be much different from the many carnival events in recent years that package tourism under the name of art.

But it was not.

This village is too much of an individual; it does not take the route of pleasing tourists: not much promotion, no directional signs, and then there is that transportation, oh that extremely hopeless transportation other than driving….

But it is exactly this direct, unpretentious style that makes you feel at ease the moment you step into the village. I got out of the taxi in front of the temple, and just as I could not figure out the direction, an elderly man came out of the temple. After learning why I had come, he patted the hot motorcycle seat and told me to get on, and the next second I was enjoying the cool natural breeze on this mini "shuttle."