Gongliao Water Terraces Experience Support Membership Recruitment Ongoing, We Invite You to Join Hehe

The helpers of the master banquet chef are said to be called "shuijiao" (in Taiwanese "shui-kha", not shuijiao dumplings, mind you);

And those in farming families who plough and harvest together? They are said to be called "jiaoshou" as well. Whether it is the feet or the hands at work, in any case the whole body gets a workout, and the mood and the appetite get stirred up along with it.

Another year on, the Gongliao Water Terrace Ecological Conservation Project is entering its third year, and we now formally invite you to join in: support these satoyama farmers who take on so many public-service roles, and together experience and witness a whole year of Hehe.

The traditional generosity of the mountain rice farming here, which "yields profit" to the environment, was in the past denigrated and seen merely as inefficient farm management. So when we first got to know the terrace farmers of Neiliao in Gongliao, continuing to farm was simply their reluctant attachment to the land; in reality, though, abandoning cultivation was the easiest choice for them. Yet over the past two years, a conservation team has moved in and many rediscoveries have unfolded; there has been much encouragement and recognition from down the mountain (including from you, reading this article right now); and the global "Satoyama Initiative" has prompted reflection that "perhaps turning back is the way forward", recognising that traditional culture and local environmental skills may also become effective means of conservation and sustainable resource management that new technology cannot replace.
So this year, they are not giving up, and they are throwing themselves into it with even more drive.

Join in and become one of the crew! We are looking for friends willing to support, willing to accompany, and moved to experience the interlocking vitality of life on the land; because you will be not just a member of these two households, but also an important force in the revival of the entire Gongliao water terraces. If you are willing, then this year, give yourself one more field-work calendar, respond to environmental support for the mountains, the water and the home of living creatures through action and consumption, and take a look at our invitation