The case study demonstrates the process and outcome of the whole watershed ‘Forest-River-Village-Sea Ecoagriculture Initiative' launched in October 2016 in Xinshe village of eastern rural Taiwan. The area starts from the ridge of the Coastal Range, extending eastward and descending into a watershed of about 600 hectares of land surrounded by the Pacific coast. The upper reaches of the watershed is distributed with national forests, in the valley in the middle reaches we can find the indigenous Amis ‘Dipit’ settlement and its farmland, and in the lower reaches from the valley downward to the coastal terrace exists the indigenous Kavalan ‘Xinshe’ settlement, and its farmland. Both settlements and farmlands situate inside the complete watershed, connecting forests, rivers, settlements and seas. Residents live at the middle and lower reaches of the river in the valley. Forests and streams upstream provide residents downstream with drinking and irrigation water, firewood, wild edible plants and meat. Surface and ground water that goes through productive farmlands and settlements is discharged into the sea, which affects ecosystem of the coastal coral reefs, which in turn affects the fishery of above two settlements.
In the past, different government sectors worked separately on different community affairs for different settlements. Resources conflicts over water usage, hunting and fishing rights happened from time to time between two indigenous settlements. Inspired by the ideas of the protected landscape/seascape, the Satoyama Initiative and ecoagriculture, since October 2016, the case study has started to be planned and managed collectively with help of an area-based multi-stakeholder platform composed of about 20 representatives from local indigenous communities, governmental institutions, the local school, academics, NGOs and green enterprises. The platform employs an integrated landscape and community-based approach to enhancing sustainable use of agro-biodiversity by the communities. An action plan of the area was drawn up collectively by stakeholders in April 2017 in line with the framework of three-fold approach to the Satoyama Initiative. There are five perspectives (36 tasks involved) of the action plan including enhancement of landscape/seascape resilience, cyclic use of nature resources, respect of traditional knowledge and culture, multi-stakeholder collaboration, socio and economic benefits. The platform proves to be an effective means to help stakeholders collectively set up the long-term conservation goal of the area as well as the short-/mid-terms action plans for enhancing ecosystem services and indigenous cultural values for local indigenous communities.
Keywords: ecosystem service, socio-ecological production landscape/seascape, collaborative planning, multi-stakeholder platform
Ecosystem: Agricultural , Resources: Land , Big Issues: Resource use , Solutions: Empowerment , Solutions: Governance/Management
