Water is the fount of life. And rivers are the mothers of civilization.
The four great early centers of civilization were the first topic we learned in world history class.
The River Nile incubated Egyptian culture. Each spring the Nile would overflow its banks, carrying fertile soil into the valley to be cultivated. Its pattern instructed Egyptians in the circularity and eternal nature of life. From these ideas Egyptians went on to invent the first accurate astronomical calculations, methods for measuring river depth, and much more.
The Tigris and the Euphrates, the largest rivers in Western Asia, nurtured between them a fertile crescent which saw the rise and fall of great empires-Sumerian, Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian. The pain and vengefulness engendered by historical struggles over these great waterways and their surrounding lands continue to be felt in the Arab world today.
Coming farther east, the River Ganges in India seems to speak of eternity. In this murky, sacred river, life and death meet in their perpetual struggle, though the line between them remains obscure. Here, time seems to stand still, making reincarnation perfectly logical, and meditation may lead to sudden enlightenment.
Coming to the Yellow River basin, there is still another scene. Thousands of years ago, the ancestors of the Chinese people had already taken gods, demons and providence into their philosophy of life, and these over time became mainstream beliefs. And thus a great river civilization-a living civilization-has evolved through the daily struggles against a hard environment of generation after generation of Chinese.
Over the past millennia, how many Chinese have grown up while fleeing disaster-drought, flood, war, repression? Perhaps through these experiences Chinese have acquired an extra measure of persistence and of confidence. This is often most obvious in immigrant societies.
Nearly 400 years ago was the first large-scale eastward migration of Han Chinese-those who followed Zheng Chenggong across the Taiwan Strait to settle up and down the coast of Taiwan. Since then, in each generation there have been brave souls who have crossed the turbulent waters of the Taiwan Strait to come to this island.
In Taiwan, as people moved from the coast to the inland areas, from the plains to the foothills and then to the mountains, Taiwan's clean, rapid rivers nourished generation after generation of farmers. Spared from the conflicts occurring in mainland China, those on the island gradually became wealthier and developed an individualistic river culture-and the simple homes on the banks of the Tanshui, Chuoshui, and other rivers gave rise to many a moving story.
Over the past decade or so, as Taiwan's economy has boomed, the urban population has grown rapidly, and land prices have skyrocketed (often as a result of speculation). Overnight, it seems, Taiwan's simple rural culture has disappeared. And, in this plural-izing society with many voices striving to be heard, most people have paid little attention to the rivers that they grew up with. Even in natural recreational areas, people have picked fruit and drunk tea in "plundering" day trips without really understanding where this would lead. Recently it has also become popular to rent or buy vacation villas in the mountains, where one can enjoy nature not far from city. For many people this is a dream come true, but they do not realize how much damage such activities can cause to the land and water in some areas, and to their descendants' inheritance. And there are even fewer consumers who, while indulging themselves in mountain-grown fruits, high-altitude teas, or pond-raised fish, will pause to consider that farmers must denude mountain watershed slopes and draw off underground water to cultivate these delicacies. (And of course mountain-grown betel nuts are another destroyer of Taiwan's land and water, but consumption of these seems not widespread enough to cast blame widely.)
These past several years, there has been no shortage of environmentally aware scholars issuing urgent warnings. It's just that, except for people who are directly affected, such warnings go in one ear and out the other. It was only in August, when Typhoon Herb created dislocation of river banks and silted up reservoirs, that many people finally woke up to the need to protect this land of ours. We must ask ourselves how we may rescue the clean waters and verdant mountains our ancestors left to us, so that we may in turn hand them to our descendants so that they may carry on.
In this issue, editor Chang Chin-ju-who has been covering environmental affairs for nearly a decade-looks at the problems faced by two major reservoirs, separated in age by twenty years, that serve the greater Taipei area. (And what is happening near Taipei is representative of similar problems with reservoirs all over the island.) We hope that our readers will join us in understanding the need to treasure the environment in which we grew up.
In the past, we in Taiwan have been proud-and rightfully so-of our economic development. And, more recently, we have celebrated the transition to democracy. Still, these accomplishments can only be sustained by protecting the island's precious water resources. Only then will there be any meaning to passing along these achievements to the next generation.
We hope that we, and our readers, will be able to grow together in the great river of civilization, contributing to the flow the wisdom and ability to reflect on what we are doing, and not choking the rivers-both literal and figurative-with waste.
