Indigenous Governance and Traditional Territory: The Wind-Fallen Beech Incident and the President¿s Apology to Indigenous People in Taiwan

Dr. Yih-Ren Lin from Taipei Medical University in Taiwan will speak about indigenous peoples' traditional ecological knowledge and its struggling existence with Taiwan government's nature conservation policy. He also touches upon the issue of transformative justice and Taiwan's historical truth seeking expressed through Taiwan president's apology to indigenous peoples on 1 August, 2016. The wind-fallen beech incident in 2005 is the case to show Taiwan's indigenous natural history and related local knowledge is undermined by the modern nature conservation government's policy. The current government's policy is much influenced by the early international trend on nature-people dichotomy. Under these circumstances, the indigenous traditional use of natural resources is heavily prohibited by the conservation laws. From the participatory process, Dr. Lin argues the indigenous ecological knowledge that embodies their delicate interaction with the environment materially and metaphysically is a challenge to the nature-people dichotomy of the modern nature conservation policy thinking. This revelation of indigenous truth might be continued by the action of Taiwan president's apology and more hidden indigenous stories will be told to justify the value of indigenous ecological knowledge in terms of nature conservation.