"The false cypress forests that survive in this mountainous island with its wet maritime climate are rare relics of an ancient forest type that today only remains in parts of East Asia and North America. It well deserves to be called a world-class natural heritage site, not just a national one." This is how the Ilan County Cultural Affairs Bureau's brochure confidently describes the Chilan cypress forest.

Taiwan's towering sacred trees are all Taiwan red cypress and Taiwan yellow cypress some 2,000-3,000 years old.

Relics of the ice age

For their rarity alone, the false cypresses do indeed represent a piece of world heritage in urgent need of protection. Thirty million years ago, trees of the genus Chamaecyparis-the false cypresses-were distributed all over the world, but successive ice ages forced them into retreat, and left them with hardly anywhere where they could survive. Fortunately, the tall mountains of Taiwan provided a refuge. Today, only six false cypress species remain in the world, scattered far apart in North America, Japan and Taiwan. Two are native to Taiwan: the Taiwan red cypress (Chamaecyparis formosensis) and the Taiwan yellow cypress (C. obtusa var. formosana). Were Taiwan's remaining false cypress forests to disappear, they would both be lost from the world's biological stage.

If Taiwan's false cypresses are rare survivors of the ice ages, the false cypresses of Mt. Chilan are among the few survivors of Taiwan's former false cypress forests.

Taiwan's false cypresses mainly grow at elevations from 1300 to 2600 meters, in areas of abundant rainfall. They are places of much rain but little wind year round, and are often shrouded in clouds, so that the forests are also known as cloud forests. In this continuously humid environment, the false cypresses have grown to be the largest coniferous trees in East Asia. They also account for the greatest numbers of Taiwan's ancient "sacred trees."

Big is beautiful

The false cypresses of the cloud belt produce timber of the highest quality. At the mention of hinoki, as the yellow cypress is called in Japanese, Taiwanese of the older generation seem to sense in their nostrils a refreshing scent that reawakens memories of the best of woods. The pencil-straight, sky-high yellow cypresses also provided the timber for many a Japanese Shinto shrine. The red cypresses-merihi in Japanese-are even bulkier than the yellow cypresses, and the few that survived the loggers' saws are today the famous giant trees of Mt. Ali and Mt. Lala.

In 1912, the Japanese colonial government began a large-scale logging program in Taiwan. Anywhere a railway could be built became a logging ground. Seemingly inexhaustible numbers of false cypress logs were transported down from Mt. Ali, Mt. Taiping and Mt. Pahsien, and shipped across the seas to Japan. In the 1950s, when the ROC government used agriculture and forestry as the source of income to support Taiwan's industrial development, the logging grounds advanced even deeper into Taiwan's heart. Of the 300,000 hectares of commercial forest, false cypresses accounted for two-thirds of the area, and contributed 70-80% of the income. Thus they made a substantial contribution to Taiwan's economic development.

The forest recreation areas in Taiwan today are all in former false cypress logging grounds. The Alishan Mountain Railway and the long forestry roads that wind through Taiwan's four major mountain ranges were all built with the purpose of carrying the huge cypress logs out of the mountains. By 1989, when the Executive Yuan ordered a ban on further logging of natural forests, only isolated patches were left of the great swathe of 20 million gigantic yellow and red cypress trees that once stretched the length and breadth of Taiwan. The yellow cypresses of Mt. Chilan in Ilan County form one of the last remaining relatively untouched forests of giant trees in Taiwan.

Merely in terms of its rarity, the false cypress forest of Chilan meets the criteria for a World Heritage Site: "Containing the most important and significant natural habitats for in-situ conservation of biological diversity, including . . . threatened species of outstanding universal value."

However, Professor Chen Yu-feng of Providence University, who has been researching Taiwan's flora for many years, also lists "ten major reasons" why the Chilan forest deserves to be listed as a World Heritage Site: apart from the rarity of the trees, the forest bears witness to the history of Taiwan's forestry industry, forms an important system protecting the soil and water of northern Taiwan, is a living example of biodiversity, is also closely related to Taiwan's geological evolution, and so on.

Ten major reasons

Deep in the cypress forest of Chilan, dense undergrowth and a slippery carpet of fallen leaves make the going difficult. Every ten to 20 meters, a millennia-old false cypress tree with a trunk three to four meters in diameter towers high into the sky.

The false cypresses occupy a transitional zone between Taiwan's broadleaved and coniferous forests. The false cypress belt is home to both frigid-zone and tropical plants, including huge trees such as Taiwan cryptomeria, Luanta fir and Taiwan yew. A third of Taiwan's native fern species grow in the damp, shady forest, and endemic Taiwanese plants such as the Taiwan pleione orchid live here too. The ancient false cypresses are a paradise for epiphytic plants, with up to 80 species living on a single tree.

The Taiwan cryptomeria that are scattered through the forest are also world-class living fossils. They grow even taller than the false cypresses-up to 60 or 70 meters-making for an extraordinary sight.

Apart from its rich flora and fauna, the cypress forest of Chilan is both ecologically and biologically important in terms of the evolution and development of biological populations.

"The places where Taiwan's false cypresses grow best are mostly large areas of debris from rockslides and collapses caused by river erosion," says Chen Yu-feng. He explains that the pressure of the collision between the Eurasian tectonic plate and the Philippine Sea plate has caused the land of Taiwan to rise continuously. As rivers cut downward through the rising land, areas of collapse appeared along them, and the tenacious false cypress seeds took the opportunity to colonize this hostile environment that other species shied away from. As the seeds slowly grew into gigantic trees, the badlands were gradually rehabilitated and also attracted other species. This protected the downstream areas, making them suitable for habitation and farming. "The growth of the false cypress forests represents a process of stabilization of the rolling mountain rivers. The false cypress trees are the living deities of the process of natural restoration of the land," writes Chen Yu-feng in his book The Flora of Taiwan. In particular, the medium-elevation cloud forests are unstable zones of heavy rainfall and powerful erosion, and when mighty false cypress trees spring up along the lines of collapse they mend the gashes in the forest and bring new life to the broken ground.

A natural waterworld

The false cypress forests which bear the heavy responsibility of stabilizing Taiwan's fragmented earth, also form a safety valve for the Shihmen Reservoir, Tanshui River and Lanyang River on which the people of northern Taiwan depend for their drinking water. The band of cypress forest that runs from Mt. Chilan to Mt. Lala forms a huge natural reservoir that soaks up heavy rainfall and releases it in gentler flows while keeping the soil firmly in its grasp, in a way that no human engineering project could replicate.

"Apart from their irreplaceable global character, the even greater significance of a site being made a World Heritage Site is to make plain its importance for area where it is located." Monica Kuo, a member of the Council for Cultural Affairs' World Heritage Site assessment committee and president of the Chinese Institute of Landscape Architects in Taiwan, says that whether in terms of the forestry industry and its past contribution to the economy, or of environmental value and soil conservation, the importance of the false cypress forests to the people of Taiwan is beyond description. No wonder the people of Ilan assert their world heritage claim with such pride.