Written by Paulina G. Karim and Kuang-Chung Lee.
Image credit: Conservation and adaptation for landscape resilience: organic Luoshan Village, Hualien County. Copyright: the Forestry and Nature Conservation Agency, Hualien Branch.
Why an Insight on landscapes and seascapes?
In recent years, global scale assessments by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES Global Assessment) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP GEO-6) brought to the forefront the concept of triple planetary crisis – climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution – and the dire need for a transformative change. Assessed from the planetary perspective and remaining a hot topic in international and national policy discourse, this crisis has the most direct and immediate implications on the ground.
Socio-ecological production landscapes and seascapes (SEPLS) are the areas sustainably managed for long-term biodiversity outcomes and human well-being. Traditionally, Indigenous Peoples and local communities inhabiting SEPLS have relied on natural resources to support their livelihoods while maintaining a harmonious relationship with Mother Earth. Today, however, with the ever-increasing impacts of the triple planetary crisis, the intimate relationship with nature is no longer an ancestral blessing but a present-day curse. Taiwan’s SEPLS communities are no strangers to this challenge.
Over the past decade, Taiwan has been witnessing extreme weather events such as extensive periods of droughts, shifting typhoon patterns, and heavy rainfalls. Climate extremes have been affecting both ecological and social systems. They force organisms to adapt to changes quickly and trigger migration from rural to urban areas, leading to rural depopulation and the loss of Indigenous and local knowledge. In places like SEPLS, which are most reliant on biodiversity and ecosystem services and are most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, resilience is no longer just a concept.
Taiwan Ecological Network: a resilience-minded strategy
How can resilience be put into action and be accounted for at a policy level? In 2018, as an answer to this question, the Forestry and Nature Conservation Agency (former name: the Forestry Bureau) introduced the Taiwan Ecological Network (in Chinese: 國土生態保育綠色網絡建置計畫or 國土綠網 for short). It is a nationwide cross-sectoral biodiversity-focused spatial planning strategy that has two strategic objectives: (1) restoration and support of resilient, biodiverse, connected, and well-functioning ecosystems (ecological resilience), and (2) conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity in SEPLS through the promotion of community resilience. In order to realise these objectives, Taiwan Ecological Network has seven strategic action tasks: improving spatial planning and database; restoring native plants and removing invasive alien species; connecting ecological corridors and constructing animal passages; identifying biodiversity-risk areas and conserving endangered species; fostering eco-friendly production; promoting integrated landscape and seascape approaches and the Satoyama Initiative; and enhancing communication, education, and public awareness.
During its first implementation phase in 2018-2021, Taiwan Ecological Network identified 44 priority biodiversity areas and 45 conservation corridors covering shallow mountains, plains, wetlands, and coastal areas. Importantly, many SEPLS inhabited and managed by Indigenous Peoples and local communities are situated right within these areas of high biodiversity significance (see Figure 1). This is precisely why the promotion of community-based and people-centred approaches to conservation, such as integrated landscape and seascape approaches and the Satoyama Initiative, has been the key strategic action task of the Taiwan Ecological Network.
The role of SEPLS communities as nature stewards, however, is becoming increasingly challenging in the face of persistent environmental and socio-economic threats. Their dependence on natural resources and vulnerability to climate-induced natural disasters further emphasises the indivisible linkage between ecological and community resilience objectives of the Taiwan Ecological Network. This explains the need for policy support towards assessing and strengthening socio-ecological resilience in Taiwan’s SEPLS.
Resilience assessment, adaptive co-management and… back to the map
In 2020, with the support of the Forestry and Nature Conservation Agency, our team (the authors) initiated a long-term (2020-2025, ongoing) project on the assessment of socio-ecological resilience in Taiwan’s SEPLS. The start of the project coincided with new challenges brought by the COVID-19 pandemic and a deepening understanding of the imperative role of SEPLS in achieving both the ecological and community resilience objectives of the Taiwan Ecological Network. There were several questions to guide our efforts. “What are the environmental and socio-economic risks faced by SEPLS communities around Taiwan?” “What resources (natural, human, institutional, financial, etc.) are available to them to deal with these risks?” “What priority issues are SEPLS communities struggling with, and what management approaches may help?”
To date, two phases of the project have been successfully implemented (phase I in 2020-2022 and phase II in 2023-2024), resulting in a comprehensive assessment of resilience in 16 SEPLS around the island. Eight branches of the Forestry and Nature Conservation Agency each selected two SEPLS within their area of jurisdiction. With assistance from facilitation teams (e.g., ecological consultant companies) and four regional bases of Taiwan Partnership for the Satoyama Initiative, they carried out community-based resilience assessment workshops (see Figure 2). Once the workshops were completed, their results (identified risks, resources and priority issues) were analysed and integrated into SEPLS management plans. Dubbed by the project participants as “RAWs-to-ACM” (from resilience assessment workshops to adaptive co-management), these post-assessment processes have included the development of community-based action plans, engagement of public and private actors, and setting up of multi-stakeholder partnerships (e.g., with municipal governments and local schools). We invite the readers to explore our case study submitted to the International Partnership for the Satoyama Initiative and CABI One Health commentary to learn about the project in more detail.
RAWs-to-ACM: Resilience assessment workshops in organic Luoshan Village, Hualien County (September 2023, on the left) resulted in the drafting of the action plan and establishment of the multi-stakeholder platform for promotion of the Satoyama Initiative (est. February 2024, on the right).
An important question (two questions, actually) in the context of our Insight is: what were some of the climate-biodiversity challenges identified by the SEPLS communities, and what role can the Taiwan Ecological Network play in addressing them? Water shortage and abnormal rainfall patterns turned out to be one of the most persistent climate-induced threats voiced by the communities. It significantly affects such agricultural activities as paddy rice cultivation, leading to a higher susceptibility to pest infestations and pesticide use, encroachment of invasive alien species, and even water-related disputes within and between communities. Timely eliciting and preventing these risks by shifting to alternative drought-resistant crops, practising crop rotation with attention to native varieties (e.g., home gardens), introducing climate-smart water-saving technologies and, in some cases, adding alternative nature-based sources of income (e.g., eco-tourism, environmental education) can contribute to both ecological and community resilience. Furthermore, mapping SEPLS location in relation to conservation corridors and priority biodiversity areas (back to Figure 1) can help to better align communities’ needs with the strategic objectives and action tasks of the Taiwan Ecological Network.
This is exactly the direction in which the project has evolved over the years. Now, in 2025, we call it “RAWs-to-ACM-to-TEN” – from resilience assessment workshops to adaptive co-management to Taiwan Ecological Network (though the relationship between the three components is rather cyclical than linear). Through continued partnership with the Forestry and Nature Conservation Agency and SEPLS communities we have managed to operationalise resilience into the conservation action. Today, in combination with community-based biodiversity monitoring and citizen science, resilience assessment workshops have become one of the monitoring and evaluation tools within the Taiwan Ecological Network.
Looking ahead: conservation and adaptation need to go hand in hand
As the search for transformative solutions continues at international, national and local levels, one thing remains clear: our multiple crises are interconnected, and our solutions need to be integrated. In places like SEPLS, climate and biodiversity challenges co-exist and co-influence each other, while SEPLS communities experience their accumulated impacts on a daily basis. Therefore, in our future policy-practice discourse, biodiversity conservation and climate adaptation will require even more cross-sectoral, inclusive and nexus-minded response options.
Taiwan Ecological Network will continue to play an important role in this process. As its second phase wraps up in 2025 and the third phase is about to begin (2026-2029), community resilience and adaptive capacity will remain as one of its strategic objectives, while RAWs-to-ACM-to-TEN approach will continue to expand and deepen its implementation outreach. At the same time, the promotion of nature-based solutions on a cross-sectoral basis and the fostering of business engagement as a part of public-private partnerships will be added as new strategic action tasks of the third phase. These are Insight-full new developments worth looking forward to.
Acknowledgements
We thank the Forestry and Nature Conservation Agency and its eight branches (Hsinchu, Yilan, Taichung, Nantou, Chiayi, Pingtung, Taitung, and Hualien) for institutional, policy and financial support to the resilience assessment project over the years (project numbers: 109林發-9.1-保-55, 110林發-09.1-花育-01, 110林發-09.1-保-12, 111林發-09.4-保-11, 111林發-08.1-花育-02, 112林發-09.4-保-03, 112林發-08.1-花育-29, 113林發-08.1-保-01, 113林發-08.1-花保-01, and 113林發-09.4-保-03). We acknowledge with gratitude the first-year funding to the project provided by the Satoyama Development Mechanism (2020). We are deeply grateful to the 16 SEPLS communities for their passion and dedication to the project, to facilitation teams for their skilful guidance, and our long-time Satoyama partners in resilience – northern, western and southern regional bases of Taiwan Partnership for the Satoyama Initiative (Dharma Drum Institute of Liberal Arts, Taiwan Biodiversity Research Institute, and National Pingtung University of Science and Technology, respectively). Many thanks to the Taiwan Insight editorial team for the invitation to contribute to this Special Issue.
About the authors
Dr. Paulina G. Karim 孫夏天 is a post-doctoral researcher with the Forestry and Nature Conservation Agency and an adjunct associate research fellow at the @ScapesLab: Integrated Landscape and Seascape Approaches Living Lab, the Centre for Sustainable Development, National Dong Hwa University. She can be reached at scapeslab@gms.ndhu.edu.tw.
Dr. Kuang-Chung Lee 李光中 is a professor at the College of Environmental Studies and Oceanography and the chair of the @ScapesLab: Integrated Landscape and Seascape Approaches Living Lab, the Centre for Sustainable Development, National Dong Hwa University. Professor Lee is also the leader of the eastern regional base of the Taiwan Partnership for the Satoyama Initiative. He can be reached at kclee@gms.ndhu.edu.tw.
This article was published as part of a special issue on ‘Navigating Climate Adaptation Challenges in Taiwan’.
Taiwan Insight 