The dictates of nature
But nature is not benevolent, and the migratory journey is a risky and dangerous one. Behind every tranquil and harmonious image of the white crane, there are deadly threats from both Nature and humankind. A zoo would be the safest place in theory, but to imprison a once-wild bird in an aviary would be no different than premeditated murder. Not long ago, a red-crowned crane that had lost its way and ended up in Korea died after being placed in a zoo.
For weary avian travelers, the best and most important thing is to ensure that the Qingshui Wetlands are cleaned up, restored, and sustainably managed. There was an opportunity to get started on this work back in 2008, when four red-crowned cranes stopped in Qingshui on their way south. Their appearance forced the government to halt work on the widening of the highway. But once they left, the project was started right back up again. At that time the EEF had yet to appear on the scene, so the visit by the Siberian white crane at this time may be just the providential second chance that the wetlands need.
This raises the question: What is it that has attracted the EEF to Qingshui? For Qiu Mingyuan, his affection for the Jinshan area comes from his mother. The first bird photo his mother took in her life was in Jinshan—it was of a common sandpiper, a migratory bird that is a very frequent winter visitor to the Qingshui Wetlands.
Qiu’s mother was none other than Qiu Lu Sulan, the renowned “bird-loving granny.” Armed with only a primary-school education, she later learned photographic developing, though she spent most of her working life running her own beauty salon. At age 60, in pursuit of a lifelong dream, she began to take a camera out into the fields to photograph birds.
In Yeliu in 2004, thanks entirely to her daily commitment and effort (and not luck!), “Grandma Sulan” made the first-ever recorded sighting in Taiwan of a migrating Siberian accentor. In 2006, at age 64, she was named the recipient of NT$1 million from the Keep Walking Fund to pursue her dreams.
The year that Grandma Sulan won the funding, Qiu Mingyuan, then 40 years old, resigned his job at the National Freeway Bureau, where he had been for 17 years, in order to accompany his mother on her travels. Together they visited India, Sri Lanka, Japan, and other locations to do bird photography. The next year Hochen Tan founded the EEF, and he hired Qiu as executive director. Thus did Qiu join Taiwan’s ecological renaissance movement.
The EEF has only four and a half staff members on its organizational chart. But without it, there would be no “Bayan Settlement” that is today a partner of the United Nations’ Satoyama Initiative. When they first moved into the Bayan area to restore the stone irrigation channels, the EEF had a hard time convincing local farmers to adopt “ecologically friendly cultivation” (no use of weedkillers or chemical fertilizers). In order to win them over, they had to pay double the market price for the sweet potatoes the farmers raised using these methods. One year after the EEF launched the Bayan project, Qiu won a five-year grant in support of the project from the Forestry Bureau. A documentary that he directed about the project was released as Satoyama Taiwan: A Paradise of Ocean and Fields.
Have we met before? The picture shows the striking difference in physique between the wayward migrant and a local resident bird.