When we attended Expo Shanghai at the beginning of the month, we took advantage of the opportunity to visit Hangzhou and the Xixi Wetlands, which have become enormously popular since the release of the film If You Are the One.

The 10-square-kilometer wetlands stand at the confluence of six waterways and existed as early as the Eastern Han Dynasty.

People have been encroaching on the wetlands for centuries. Aquaculture and pig farming facilities used to claim much of the area, polluting and eating away at the wetlands. Then, in 2003, Hangzhou Party Secretary Wang Guoping set out to make Hangzhou a "travel city." Seizing the bull by the horns, he tore out thousands of aquaculture ponds, relocated tens of thousands of farmers, and invested hundreds of millions of renminbi, turning the area into China's standard bearer for ecological preservation.

There have been some bumps in the road. The imperious Wang, dubbed a "good official" in the Taiwanese press, left his post early this year and has recently been the subject of corruption rumors. And a few wetlands residents have simply refused to leave, rejecting generous relocation incentives.

But gliding across the waters at twilight in an electric boat on an early autumn evening, seeing the grass and reeds, the mulberries and the willows on both banks, the occasional night heron, the lack of human structures, lent the scene a simplicity and lack of affectation that contrasted sharply with the area's reputation. Whether individuals were conspiring behind the scenes or not, you nonetheless feel that they had a genuine desire to protect the environment and reduce the human impact on it.

Typhoon Fanapi dumped a phenomenal amount of rain on Taiwan shortly after our return. In addition to causing severe flooding in Kaohsiung on a scale rarely seen, the storm resulted in yet another escape of eels, shrimp, and giant grouper from coastal aquaculture facilities. Facility operators complained to the media that they'd just recovered from Typhoon Morakot when Typhoon Fanapi came along and washed away everything they'd done in the preceding year.

Given that human beings are no longer in the position of being able to extract from Nature whatever they will, we can expect to hear this kind of hue and cry again and again in years to come. Who in Taiwan will take bold action to remove aquaculture facilities (after compensating owners) and restore the wetlands? Relocating and retraining the fish farmers will entail massive difficulties, but no greater than those posed by the annual flooding. Moreover, removing aquaculture ponds will ease the subsidence problem and protect our high-speed rail system, giving the troubled west coast of Taiwan a little room to breathe.

This month's cover story addresses the even more difficult challenges that environmental change is bringing to the islands of the Pacific. These islands, which have always had very low carbon emissions, have become victims of the West's petroleum-driven civilization. But the islands' use of their victim status to appeal for foreign aid has worsened the environmental crisis.

The islanders face a terrible predicament. As with Taiwan's indigenous peoples, relocation would destroy their communities and sever their connections to their cultural roots. But staying put risks their lives.

They will pay a price whatever they choose. The question is what costs they can bear. Lost lives can never be recovered. And once they are gone, questions about the preservation of their autonomy, culture, and communities are meaningless. The international community should make more binding promises to help set their minds at ease. Facing a grim natural "counterattack," the people of the world must recognize that we are all part of the "community of life."