How to Sustain an Island?

Sustainable Indigenous Practices in Land Management in Lanyu.

The purpose of my research is to conduct an interdisciplinary study in ecological anthropology and conservation biology: How do indigenous people shape their diverse biophysical environment through their socio-cultural activities? What is the impact of modernization and globalization on their sustainable land use and related technology, economy, social structure and religion? Is it possible to assist them in reducing the damages of this modern changes, based on their traditional adaptive strategies, political and tribal organizations, and belief or ideology system? I first became interested in this cultural-bio-diversity relationship on Lanyu island, which lies between Taiwan and the Philippines. On this tropical island, heavy rainfall (more than 2600 mm per year) has made the soil very poor. However, the Yami people in Lanyu maintained their tribal organizations, and developed a unique food production system which was stable in land productivity. Moreover, the Yami people interacted with the whole ecosystem-based environment through their special socio-cultural system. But modernization in Lanyu changes the situation. Currently, there is a food and nutrition deficiency, especially in children and the elderly population, because of the following modern pressures: human population growth, out-migration of young people, inappropriate land use and severe soil degradation. My ultimate concern is: what is the future trend of land use and social changes in Lanyu? Is it possible to develop, from their indigenous socio-cultural viewpoint, a new methodology to adjust the modern utilizing of natural resource? How can we work with Yami people to improve the present land practices, and preserve biodiversity and environmental sustainability simultaneously?

With limited linguistic information1 available from past literature(1), how can we bridge the huge gap between Yami's human ecology knowledge and our modern scientific interests in biodiversity conservation and ecosystem management? Located 40 nautical miles off the southern coast of Taiwan, and 240 nautical miles from the Philippines, Lanyu island has remained relatively untouched by the twentieth century. This small island is known as Irala in Yami language, Lanyu in Mandarin Chinese, and Orchid Island in English. Before 1980, scientists knew very little about how Yami people produced food with traditional agroforestry and indigenous taro agriculture by manipulating tribal organizations. Based on the knowledge from my preliminary field study(2), Yami men used to maintain their farmlands, or build mosaic gardens in natural and man-made gaps within matured forests; while Yami women took responsibilities as cultivators and garden managers. Their indigenous practices in land management sustained soil fertility and biodiversity, which were managed by their socio-cultural organizations. However, in the 1980ís, the modernization speeded up the dissolution of Yami culture following the differential out-migration issue of gender: A number of Yami men emigrated to Taiwan, and worked for labor-intensive industries such as construction, due to the strong labor shortage of industrialized Taiwan; while Yami women chose to stay in Lanyu, raised children and kept households. During that period, however the population in Lanyu increased and more agricultural plots were created (most transformed from agroforestry gardens) to plant food crops. They adopted intensified plantation practices, which finally led to land degradation and the loss of soil fertility. Finally, in the 1990ís, Taiwan started to import foreign labor, which resulted in many Yami peopleís losing their jobs in Taiwan and returning to Lanyu. These unemployed people had lived in Taiwan for a long time, and did not have plenty of traditional knowledge to survive on their own island. In 1996-7, I observed most of them clear cut their forests with slash-and-burn to obtain more farmlands in order to produce more food. But without the concerns for environmental sustainability to maintain soil fertility, crop productivity was rather unstable. Yami people used to have abundant knowledge about soil fertility and food production. However, poor education and the loss of cultural identity and heritage lead to inappropriate land uses in the present time. Based on this issue, my research aims to provide partial answers on how to improve environmental sustainability by studying the relationship among field biophysical conditions, traditional land practices, and their socio-cultural adaptive strategies. In addition to improving to modern food production by conserving soil fertility and biodiversity, I would also like to work with tribal organizations, and develop policy solutions based on indigenous land technology and their socio-cultural system, such as belief, philosophy, economy, tribal organizations and legal institutions.

I will begin my participatory observation in Lanyu in 2000, and propose to conduct my research from three perspectives below: First, from ecological and environmental perspective, to understand the recent relationship between soil conditions and indigenous land management, I intend to apply my experience of ecological research(2) to survey soil chemistry, mineralogy and fertility in 6 unique and isolated villages under different tribal practices, ranging from agroforestry gardens to agricultural plots. In order to address the environmental sustainability, I will also use the concepts developed from my course work(3) to study the spatial changes of biodiversity in their food production systems and monitor earthworms as an index of soil degradation. Second, from socio-cultural perspective, from my residency in Lanyu in 1996-7 and working with these Pacific islanders, I have maintained long-time contacts and friendship with Yami people, which enabled me interact and communicate with their tribal organizations. To consider the changes of traditional practices over time, I will interview my informants with an unstructured talk focusing on natural philosophy, belief system, land use history and their management strategies. Moreover, I will develop my structured questionnaires by applying the knowledge I learned from the Minnesota Survey Center and class discussion in Ecological Anthropology, and conduct interviews with more stakeholders, opinion leaders, and tribal organizations. Third, from conservation policy perspective, I will contact the related local non-governmental organizations to arrange several round-table meetings with outside experts, researchers, and local authorities. This aims to involve the tribesmen to take necessary responsibility as stewards and protectors to sustain their land and Yami culture in Lanyu. To summarize, my public-involving project will reinforce the local participation of legal institutions and tribal organizations. These community-based reflections of environment will also improve the policy-making process by close consultations between professional scholars of international development and the indigenous Yami people. More importantly, this will empower local autonomy to manage their homeland with a global point of view.

My community-based project directly provides insights into biodiversity conservation and land sustainability(4). I will combine the conceptions in conservation biology with the other sociological disciplines to deal with human ecology conflicts caused by environmental, socio-cultural, and political dilemma(5). My interest meets the central concerns of environmental sustainability and human-ecosystem relationship, and try to develop a sustainable project involving local people in conservation biology, human ecology and ecosystem management.

1 Benedek, D. 1987. A comparative study of the Bashic cultures of Irala, Ivatan, and Itbayat. Ph.D. thesis. Pennsylvania state university.
2 See appendix: resume / research experience
3 See appendix: conservation biology, spatial ecology, tropical ecology, natural resource economics
4 See the relative studies in natural resource communities: McCay, B.J. & J.M. Acheson. 1990. The question of the commons - the culture and ecology of communal resource. The University of Arizona Press, Tucson, USA.
5 See how conservation biologists involved in social issues: Bates, D.G. & S.H. Lees. 1996. Case studies in human ecology. City University of New York, New York, USA.