A New Era for National Parks in Taiwan and South Korea

In late March, Taroko National Park played host to some important visitors. A delegation from Korea’s ­Gyeongju National Park traveled to Mt. Hehuan (He­huan­shan), accompanied by Taiwanese officials including Huang Tzu-chuan, head of the National Parks Division at the Construction and Planning Agency of the Ministry of the Interior (CPAMI).

When the Korean delegation visited Taroko National Park, they were able to witness first-hand the wondrous workmanship of nature that created this island of Taiwan. (courtesy of CPAMI)

Equal interactions, joint creativity

The delegation was made up of professionals from Gyeongju National Park, headed by the park office superintendent, Yun Duk Gu. Last year the Gyeongju National Park Office signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Taiwan’s Yangmingshan National Park Headquarters, the first MOU on cooperation between the two countries’ national parks, which was an exciting development for both sides.

In 2021 Lin Chen-fu, director general of the Busan Office of the Taipei Mission in Korea, went hiking in ­Gyeongju National Park and saw historic sites from the Silla Dynasty dating back more than 1,000 years. This inspired him to promote the signing of the MOU.

“This MOU is a form of international exchange directly between national parks. It is the first document of its kind for Korea, so it is extremely significant, and we look forward to both sides working together to create an excellent precedent,” said Yun Duk Gu.

“We can exchange information about management, public education, and technical training for personnel. In particular, in future the two sides can share data on the global issues of carbon neutrality and climate change, and I’m confident that we can create a better future.”

The group were able to get a taste of the scenery of Taiwan’s high-mountain national parks and see the plant life and climatic conditions at different elevations. It was an unforgettable experience. (courtesy of CPAMI)

Yangmingshan’s Erziping Trail is easy to hike. Young members of the visiting group from Gyeongju National Park are shown here taking playful commemorative photos on the trail.

People-oriented management

A national park like Yangmingshan that lies so close to a city must deal with complex requirements from visitors. The Korean delegation expressed great interest in learning about the park’s management approaches.

When the group reached Yangmingshan’s handicapped-­accessible Erziping Trail, their attention was immediately drawn by an item installed at the trailside. “What’s this?” Delegation members crowded around and took pictures with their phones. “This is a distance marker,” explained Chang Shun-fa, deputy director of the park adminstration. “It indicates the strength of cell phone signals and lets visitors know where they are on the trail.”

The distance markers are color coded by trail system, and if visitors get lost they only need report which distance marker they are at and park personnel can tell them their position and give them further assistance. There is a marker every 200 meters, with the elevation displayed on the side. They are especially helpful in making search and rescue operations more timely and efficient.

The visitor center at Xiaoyoukeng in Yangmingshan National Park has displays showing the area’s volcanic geology and topography, hot springs, and fumaroles and explaining how they were formed, as well as exhibits on plant and animal ecosystems, complete with multimedia presentations. It’s well worth a visit.

Both environment and culture

Seeing a fallen tree on a slope, Yun Duk Gu said: “In Korean national parks you don’t see any fallen trees, as we always clear them away.” Out of concern that fallen trees might slide down slopes and endanger visitors, the Korean park authorities normally remove them. But at Yangmingshan, the park personnel assess the safety implications, and if they find that a fallen tree poses no threat, they leave it in place whenever possible.

In the past, the policy in Taiwan’s national parks was to put visitors first, but people have gradually come to realize that nature consists of integrated ecosystems. “Fallen trees play an important ecological role in nature, as many insects hatch and mature in them.” Dragging fallen trees away for fear of their inconveniencing visitors destroys the natural habitat of many living things. “This is our considered view after looking at the issue for a long time,” said Huang Tzu-chuan, explaining that the management policies of Taiwan’s national parks seek to strike a balance between the needs of people and of nature conservation.

Yangmingshan National Park Headquarters director Yang Mo-lin (first left) accompanied the delegation from Korea’s Gyeongju National Park, headed by park office superintendent Yun Duk Gu (front, fourth from left), on their visit to Yangmingshan, where they learned about the park’s management strategies.

The heartbeat of a volcano

The geological activity in and around the park was especially interesting to the Korean visitors. Yangmingshan National Park is set mainly in the mountains of the Datun Volcano Group, and because of their close proximity to the city of Taipei, people are concerned about the potential for a volcanic eruption. Therefore the Ministry of the Interior and the then National Science Council (now the National Science and Technology Council) joined forces with various organizations including the Academia Sinica, the Central Geological Survey, and the Central Weather Bureau to set up the Taiwan Volcano Observatory (TVO) in 2011, in order to conduct long-term continuous monitoring of volcanic activity. “We use real-time observation to stay abreast of volcanic activity around Yangmingshan and to track seismic activity throughout Taiwan,” the observatory’s director, Lin Cheng-horng, explained to the Korean delegation. Lin is a distinguished research fellow in the Institute of Earth Sciences at the Academia Sinica.

In recent years, by monitoring seismic activity, volcanic gases, movements in the land surface and changes in ground temperature, the TVO has uncovered many secrets of these volcanoes. For example, in the Dayoukeng area there is an earth tremor approximately every 18 minutes, and these repetitive quakes are like a human heartbeat. “This may be the first time anywhere in the world that seismic activity has been observed with such a heartbeat signature,” says Lin. This heartbeat can serve as an indicator as to whether the volcano will erupt in the future: “We anticipate that before any eruption, this repetitive seismic activity will become increasingly ­intense.”

After arriving in Taiwan, the members of the Korean delegation not only were able to experience the warmth and hospitality of the Taiwanese, but were also deeply impressed by the beautiful scenery in our national parks. Korea has many national parks, but there are none with high-mountain environments. By contrast, of Taiwan’s nine national parks, three have dense concentrations of mountain peaks more than 3,000 meters tall, something rarely seen anywhere in the world.

For example, Yushan (Mt. Jade) is the highest peak in Northeast Asia, and Taiwan’s high-mountain national parks are centers for the conservation of relict species from the ice ages. Climbing to elevations above 3,000 meters was a novel experience for the delegation members, for Korea’s highest peak, Hallasan, is only 1,947 meters tall, whereas Mt. Hehuan has three peaks above 3,400 meters.

There is historical significance to the grazing water buffaloes at Qingtiangang, which have become a must-see attraction on Yangmingshan.

The new coffee shop at the Xiaoguanyin Visitor Center gives travelers a place to rest and chill out. The delegation from the Gyeongju National Park Office stopped here to try the coffee and enjoy the tranquility of the mountains.

Management advances

Taiwan currently has nine national parks: Yangmingshan, Yushan, Taroko, Shei-Pa, Kinmen, Kenting, South Penghu Marine, Taijiang, and Dongsha Atoll. Each park has its own distinctive ecosystems and representative cultural and historic sites, which is why the way in which each park is managed is adapted to the local area and culture. Moreover, there was no precedent to any of their experiences. For example, when the United States established the world’s first national park, Yellowstone, there were very few people living within the park area. But in Taiwan, substantial numbers of local residents live within the boundaries of our national parks. Thus Taiwan has been unable to simply follow the US example and has instead needed to find its own path towards managing parks with numerous residents.

Managing a national park always involves striking an optimal balance between the demands of residents and visitors on the one hand and those of the natural environment and conservation on the other, with a need for continual adjustments to calibrate the impact and proportionality of management measures. Taiwan and Korea are different in terms of their customs and culture and of their natural environments, but both are faced with the challenge of climate change. What are the appropriate management strategies that will allow people to sustainably continue to appreciate the beauty of their national parks into the future? By sharing their experiences in management and service provision, the two sides can surely make a valuable contribution to efforts to achieve carbon neutrality and address global climate change.