In years past, by the end of winter or the beginning of spring, the century old large-leaved fig in the Ssuyuan district of Chinchichieh would have already had shoots sprouting up all over, but this year there wasn't a bud to be found. Beneath the tree, some of the villagers knocked on it, shaking their heads with concern; others threw divination blocks to ask the earth god what the matter was; and still others said to hurry up and call the county's department of forestry services, which is responsible for old trees.

When Huang Jui-hsiang, a county specialist with a doctorate in horticulture, came, he brought only a knife. On the trunk of the tree--so large it takes eight people to encircle--he carved a small channel that quickly filled with white sap.

"Relax. It's all right," Huang told the group of nervous villagers clustered around him. The tree still had "root pressure" - the ability to pump the sap up for the leaves to absorb. Still full of life, the tree, as expected, began to bud a few days later, its crown growing thick with tender new leaves. The villagers called Huang right away to tell him, "The large-leaved fig has sprouted."

The residents of Ssuyuan have risen together to protect their tree, installing plastic pipes around the aerial roots to prevent their coming to harm.

Back in time:

This tree has grown in Chin-chichieh for nearly 200 years. Beginning as a small seedling, it was born and bred where it now stands, relying on the place's water, soil and air. It's on its own home turf.

For a hundred and some odd years, it has withstood numerous typhoons. Its branches may have taken a bit of a beating but nothing too serious. According to legend, it was once even swept off by a typhoon and then left upright in the same spot when the typhoon swept back to the south. And so, during this recent crisis, people tried to offer solace by saying, "When knocked down, it set itself straight. How can what's happening now be a problem for it?"

While the days may have passed uneventfully as the seasons have turned in their endless cycle, the tree hasn't been lonely. It has always had the companionship of the local earth god, who's just as old. During the day, school kids pedal by on their bikes. At dusk old folk come to do their stretching exercises. And on sweltering summer days, people gather here to enjoy the cool shade. True, when that hard and cold cement road was paved just beyond the reach of its roots, it was a little uncomfortable, but for the most part it had nothing much to complain about. Enjoying largely mild weather, it has dug its roots deep and firm.

Even in the last few years, with buildings springing up everywhere else, it has been surrounded by wide stretches of wet fields giving plenty of water for nourishment. To give the leaves an even look at the sun, it has cast off branches that stretched too far, and so its crown is full and round--unlike the uptight roadside trees pruned by people.

The people in the temple like to hang out in its shade, and they've pushed the desks of the directors, who only come every once in a while, to the other side.

A county specialist told the villagers not to worry. The old tree, still doing a good job of circulating its sap, is full of life.

The rhythm of the large-leaved fig:

In the plains large-leaved fig trees that live to such a ripe old age are few and far in between. The largeleaved fig is a kind of banyan found in the tropics and subtropics at low and mid altitudes. Its leaves can grow a meter long. Today, most people in Taiwan have only seen the Chinese banyan (the glossy-leaf fig tree), a small-leaved variety that is widespread in the plains. According to botanists, Ilan has one of the largest populations of largeleaved figs. Wushihkang, Tahu, Kungchao, and Suao all have one or two protected old large-leaved fig trees as well.

Plants are 90 percent water, and a thriving 100-year-old tree needs to replace close to half a metric ton of water lost to evaporation every day. Without an unending supply of water, a tree will be hard pressed to grow big. Because Ilan is at a low altitude and has many springs, the roots find it easy to quench their thirst and the trees' crowns grow lush and full. Full of springs and developed by man relatively late, the areas where the mountains meet the plain have most of the remaining banyans.

Each species of tree has its own rhythm of growth, and large-leaved figs are especially quick to react to change. When lacking water in the dry season, they shed many of their leaves so as to reduce the amount of water needed. The surface of their leaves are smooth and pointy, allowing them to shed water more easily and prevent rot. It is as if the tree has trained itself to change clothes as suits the weather.

The residents of Wushihkang wait for their transplanted large-leaved fig to sprout and regain its vitality.

An age of development:

The opportunities presented by the combined factors of geology and man play a big role in determining just how big a tree can get. First of all, the tree has got to avoid ending up as lumber. As fortune would have it, the extensive aerial roots and twisted trunks of the banyan don't make good two-by-fours. And so because of weather, geography, the benevolence of man and their own fighting spirit, a few big longleaved figs in Ilan have managed to gain vigor with age.

But times have changed. Two years ago, work began on the Ilan-Taipei highway, which will make the cities just 40 minutes apart and turn Ilan into Taipei's backyard. In anticipation of the coming hordes, Ilan's real estate market boomed and rice paddies have been turned into construction sites.

First, the fields on the left side of the big old tree were sold off and rezoned for residences. Not long after, construction started on a Western-style seven-story building. Unfortunately, the builder used the middle of the old tree to define the boundary of the site, and then put in a brick wall, paved around the tree, and started to dig a foundation (cutting its roots in the process). If the building had gone up, one third of the tree would have had to have been cut off. The situation looked grim. When the builder occupied some of the road, the villagers had qualms. When they saw that one third of the old tree's roots had been neatly removed, their anxiety brought them to loggerheads with the construction company.

The ever-flowing springs of llan's Tahu nourish this largeleaved fig, which makes for a Shangrilalike environment.

The temple and the tree:

But the builders conveniently had a deed to show that half the land under the tree was theirs. In the days of the villagers' grandparents, the temple and the tree were as one, inseparable. How could it be, the villagers lamented, that now they had the temple but not the tree? And so an appeal was made to the county government in the hope that the builders would proceed with construction in such a way as not to affect the tree. Then in an unexpected turn of events, it turned out that the rights of the builders were not so clear after all, and they hadn't obtained a building permit. Construction was halted.

The county's official for "greenification" saw members of the village who had come appealing for the tree's life. He told the people of the village that although there is no such thing as ownership of a tree, the temple to the earth god could have rights to the land. He encouraged the people of the village to organize a management committee and to clear up the ownership of the neighboring land so as to prevent something like this from happening again.

With the spark lit by the forestry official, concern about the tree turned into something more aggressive. In the past the villagers hadn't been fully conscious of what this tree meant to them, but now they were certain of purpose. They tore down the rain tarps that had been put on the trunk and tore up the cement that had been laid around the roots, replacing it with porous bricks provided by the county. These make it easy for the tree to get its daily requirement of water and help its roots grow.

To help the old tree's aerial roots to grow well, falling unimpeded to the ground, and to encourage the roots underground to grow and prevent the tree from being top heavy, they also installed some pipelike round pillars to protect the aerial roots and prevent people from pulling them and weakening the tree.

Vitality through disease prevention:

The county's forestry services personnel were the happiest of all. Funds for turning the county green, they note, are very limited. Now that Ilan is faced with development of all kinds, planting trees is urgently needed, says Chen Ou-pu, the young chief of the forestry services office, but there is simply no land available. To prevent a greenless future, the trees already standing have got to be protected.

"We hope that the community will show even greater togetherness in opposing unnecessary development," says Huang Jui-hsiang, a specialist with the Forestry Bureau. Protecting trees is a means to the end of all the people in Ilan being more aware about how the land around them is changing. This awareness will work to nip harmful development in the bud. Those planning development of all kinds will be more careful, and the natural resources of Ilan will avoid destruction.

For the sake of one tree, the people of Chin-chichieh went to see the magistrate and formed a committee. As news of what they did got around, the people of the village felt very proud, for they hadn't expected that their struggle would set a precedent. The word was out: No matter how you lay the roads or build the houses, don't mess with the big trees.

Not long afterwards, forestry officials organized another display of people power in Wushihkang. In Toucheng Township, across from the docks of Wushihkang and not a hundred meters away, there was an old roadside large-leaved fig, the senior of even the one in Chinchichieh. It was virtually a symbol of the town. When you saw it from a train or a car, you knew you were coming to Toucheng. In the past, when the tree sprouted new shoots, it meant that the people of Wushihkang could go to the sea and net a big catch of larval fish. In days past, back when life was hard, "kids would often break off a sprig of large-leaved fig and eat it as a snack. It was sour but tasted alright," says a middle-aged man born and bred in Ilan, plucking a sprout and putting it into his mouth.

Protecting wherever the roots cling:

Unfortunately, the road beside the large-leaved fig of Toucheng is the major thoroughfare between Taipei and Ilan, and traffic here is heavy. The Taiwan Highway Bureau had intended to widen this road. Last year road crews came within 100 meters of the old tree. With the road widened so close, its transplanting seemed already a fait accompli--how could the tree not be moved? But then the county government stepped in to negotiate with the Highway Bureau.

At the meeting someone asked, "Was the road or the tree there first? If you want the tree to go, let it walk away by itself. Otherwise, we will protect where its roots grow, protect where its branches extend."

And so the road construction stopped in front of the tree. Making its plans all over again, the Highway Bureau moved the center of the road west, making necessary the acquisition of a row of three story buildings on that side of the road.

But things didn't end here. Two years ago, when the gravel road was paved over with asphalt, the soil and then the tree's roots suffered. The pressure of the cement on the ground blocked up the channels that brought water to the roots, and they gradually died off. For a long time this old tree of Wushihkang had no vitality. Though not dead, it hardly counted as living.

Not long after the decision was made to change the path of the road, a typhoon knocked the tree over, leaving it flat on the ground with its roots exposed to the air. To survive, it needed to be transplanted immediately, and so two trucks that could together hold a load of 85 metric tons carefully moved the tree a meter at a time. Where? This Toucheng landmark couldn't just disappear. It was moved to private farming land about fifty meters away.

To the pokey:

Because the tree was being transplanted to a low-lying swampland, people feared that its roots would rot. And so extra soil was needed. With the tree out of the ground, the situation was urgent, requiring action before paperwork granting permission to dig in a river bed could be done. And so on county orders but without papers, two clerks of the Wushihkang rural township office went to the bed of the Fute River to dig for soil.

In other counties and cities, the greatest tragedy associated with public lands is that no one gives a hoot. But the people of Ilan are nosey meddlers. When people passing over the bridge saw people lugging away big sacks of soil below, they informed the county government. The county officials in charge of preventing "excessive taking of sand and stones" came with the police. Tongue-tied and unable to produce any permits, the diggers were arrested. A half day later, the same officials figured out that these guys were digging at the behest of their colleagues in the county government, and they went to post bail. "How is it that you asked us to arrest them," asked a confused policeman, "and now you come to bail them out?"

After the tree fell over, during a stretch when it didn't rain the roots couldn't absorb any water and a truck came to water it every day. After it was transplanted, the neighborhood chief personally connected the watering pipes. "There are so many little details to attend to, and the county's manpower is limited," says the forestry department's Li Chen-chang. "It's best for the local people to be self-reliant and do it themselves."

In order to plan for the long term, the county government invited a planning expert, who sketched out a park, 50 meters square, around the tree's new home. If neighboring agricultural land were turned into residential land, the tree might once again have to be moved. It's much better to make plans for a public park now, acquiring the land and preventing the old tree from being damaged for a second time.

Making the dump smaller:

As soon as all the business about the old tree of Wushihkang was over, Suao was unwilling to be upstaged, and the forestry services department was called upon once again. Last year, the Environmental Protection Administration had planned to build a landfill site next to the sea in Suao. Within the site was Ilan's only wild white fig tree.

It had been thought that in Taiwan the white fig grew only in Kenting. Forestry officials could only conjecture as to how this white fig tree grew in the wild in Ilan: "Perhaps a migratory bird ate a seed of a white fig tree while stopping over in Hengchun and excreted it here, giving Ilan a single wild giant white fig tree."

A strange beauty in a strange land, it must be blessed by God. Its numerous fibrous roots spread out in all directions like an octopus. Looking like a dozen some trees all twisted together, it's impossible to tell which is the trunk and which are the branches. Any attempt to move it would change it beyond recognition. It would probably no longer be a big tree. But if not moved, the seaside forest surrounding it would perish a day or two after the bulldozers began their work, becoming a barren waste land.

Though residents have been known to drive away proposed garbage dumps, a dump that no one wants wasn't about to drive away a sacred old tree. And so the county government had no choice but to scale back on the size of the planned dump, placing the white fig tree outside of it. Fearing that the workers might damage the tree, residents would come by occasionally to check on construction.

Move the tree? Harm the tree?

The fact of the matter is that though the big tree of Wu-shihkang was transplanted for its own good, it was moved "as a last resort," says Huang Jui-hsiang. Successfully transplanting a tree to make way for a garbage dump would be meaningless.

In order to build a parking lot, someone recently hired a 120- ton truck to move two century-old foxglove trees in Hsinchu. Proclaiming the move "a trip of life," he proudly invited local schools to join him in "this glorious endeavor." But Huang thinks the moving of these old foxgloves was a tragic event that couldn't be helped. It shouldn't be made into a show, where people show off their skills in transplanting.

Kuo Pao-chang, a professor of forestry at National Taiwan University, describes the idea that you can protect trees by moving them from here to there as "a big joke." In order to prevent the tree from drying out, you've got to take out the roots and strip the leaves--it's like cutting off its tail or severing its head and limbs. Its chances of survival in its new home are very slight. Even if it does survive, life will be precarious.

For instance, no one knows what the future holds for that transplanted long-leaved fig of Wu-shihkang. At the time of transplanting, almost all of its leaves and branches were cut off. Only the roots and a rather bare trunk was left. People are still waiting for new shoots. "I'm afraid in three to five years we may still not know whether or not it's really going to make it," says Huang Jui-hsiang. None of the local people who care about the tree dare to say what would happen if it died. They just don't want to think about it.

Just as people can't resurrect the human dead, they can only do so much to prevent a big tree from dying, and they can't change what's already been done. "In taking care of a tree, you've got first to provide water in its growing environment and ensure that it gets all of the nourishment it needs," says Huang, explaining his philosophy of care. "Then one must be prepared for the unexpected, taking active efforts to improve the tree's growing environment while guarding against damage by outside forces. After doing your best, you can only let nature take its course." With such a big tree, what man can do is limited. Eventually, one needs God's blessing.

The banyan's home turf:

With such little control over nature, why do we look for ways to test ourselves. If insistent about not transplanting, you will always be able to come up with another solution: a solution that won't bully the defenseless tree, a "simpler" method that will cause the least protest.

While the old trees in Ilan aren't any different from those anywhere else, the people of Ilan are learning how to treat nature with patience. For example, now the county government has proposed to the Department of Agriculture and Forestry a plan to protect banyan seeds, moving a step beyond passive protection of the old trees. The county suggests collecting tree seeds and branches from the big banyan trees and planting and numbering them so as to be clear about who is whose descendant. The cultivated seedlings could then be given to any agencies needing them. Before the big old tree of Wushihkang was blown over in the wind, Huang Jui-hsiang had already started collecting its seeds.

Huang says it's like a pilgrimage for a Taoist god. When a god has an uncanny efficacy, people will come from all over to take back a stick of incense with his powers. Today we're gleaning the seeds of old trees to pass along their power. If some old tree passes away, its seeds can be planted in the same spot. Who knows, maybe 300 years on, the seedling will have become a venerable old hero. In this way an old giant won't meet the fate of the "holy tree" on Ali Mountain. In the past no one made sure that it had future generations to carry on its legacy. Though still standing, the life in it has long been extinguished. If a few seeds from every big tree could be saved, what hope people would have!

It's a long way off before we can resurrect old trees. In the meantime, let's not just rely on the Ilanese.

[Picture Caption]

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This large-leaved fig was born and bred here in the neighborhood of Ssuyuan, but recently it was facing amputation of a third of its branches.

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The residents of Ssuyuan have risen together to protect their tree, installing plastic pipes around the aerial roots to prevent their coming to harm.

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A county specialist told the villagers not to worry. The old tree, still doing a good job of circulating its sap, is full of life.

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The residents of Wushihkang wait for their transplanted large-leaved fig to sprout and regain its vitality.

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The ever-flowing springs of llan's Tahu nourish this largeleaved fig, which makes for a Shangrila like environment.