The 17th century British poet John Donne wrote:

No man is an island, entire or itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

For him all living things are part of the greater whole, mutually dependent. The loss of any life is the loss of a poet.

So how can man and beast, sharing the same earth, find a reasonable accommodation? This is a problem that has long occupied environmentalists. From the negative international reaction--and that of many people in Taiwan--to the killing of tigers and selling of rhino horns here and similar concerns elsewhere, it seems there is a growing consensus that we must respect the lives of animals and return to them their freedom, whether it be the black-faced spoonbill or the elephant.

In the Republic of China on Taiwan, activists are promoting an environmental protection viewpoint, and both citizens and government are beginning to hear the bell tolling. It is hoped that a model for "peaceful coexistence" can be found and that those without a voice can be protected. But there are always obstacles.

This issue we introduce Taiwan's raptors.

With wealth in Taiwan has come a fad for collecting exotic animals. While this may be fine for cats and dogs, this is not the case for the hawks, who should be soaring in the sky. Not only does confinement in a small space affect the health and capabilities of the hawks, busy modern people have little time to devote to giving them proper care.

How can raptor-raising norms be established? How can they be truly cared for? What is their relationship to people? What's the current situation in Taiwan? This issue addresses these questions from the angles of ecology, culture, and society.

Since the lifting of martial law, Chinese on both sides of the Taiwan Strait have been interacting for over five years now. Countless numbers of people have gone there to visit relatives, travel, or invest, and some mainland Chinese have come to Taiwan as well. But there's been another type of visitor: TV crews carrying cameras over their shoulders filming north to south, mountains to sea.

TV can be an eye on another land. From the spectacle of the program "The Journey of 8,000 Miles" to the entertaining "Ten Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains." it seems that TV has moved to satisfy a curiosity built up by forty years of being incommunicado.

But why do they love to catch people looking startled at the camera when they get to remote areas? Why are the voiceovers done with a tone of superiority? When reporting on historic artifacts, why do they stick to historical stories and simple images, without delving into how these are maintained or how they are treated today?

Of course, there are many difficulties in making such programs, with many limits set by time and the environment. Yet sometimes it seems that the problem is not so much that they "cannot" use a certain point of view, but that they will not. For example, in introducing amazing skills, shouldn't a more prudent attitude be adopted? Shouldn't facts be checked more carefully before reporting on, say, a doctor practicing "miraculous" cures? A Japanese program broadcast even as hype about mysterious mainland abilities was peaking revealed a ch'i master who rigged the strength demonstrations, and a telepathic character reader who was actually being coached by an accomplice....

Many such examples tell us that the programs could be better. What we need is an open but critical mind, not one that is at once condescending yet gullible. Perhaps that's the only way we'll get a truly accurate "picture" from our TVs.