"According to Tsou legend, Danaiku was a holy place, where there was a taboo against killing any living being and where you could see all kinds of animals that had no fear of man. When schools of fish swam close to the banks, the water would be so full of them that they would block all view of the riverbed. We want to bring that Danaiku back to life, to make it a sanctuary for the Taiwan ku fish. If we want to bring Shanmei back to life, we've first got to take care of its river of life."

So spoke Kao Cheng-sheng, mayor of Shanmei, as he held up a 25-centimeter Taiwan ku fish (Varicorhinus alticorpus-a type of carp) in a community meeting on October 17, 1989. He was describing the new direction that he felt the village had to move in.

On the same day, the people of Shanmei Village unanimously voted for the Bylaws for the Danaiku Self-Administered Conservation District, which outlined a 12-year plan for revitalizing the valley:

The Bylaws stated the following:

1) Danaiku is collectively owned by the people of Shanmei Village.

2) Danaiku's Shanmei Village is a protected area for the Taiwan ku fish.

3) All of the land within six kilometers of the Danaiku River is a protected conservation zone within which all hunting is prohibited.

4) Penalties:

1. For fishing with hooks: NT$12,000.

2. For electrocuting fish: NT$30,000.

3. For poisoning fish: NT$50,000 [because the fish population grew, this figure was later adjusted to NT$250,000]

4. For cutting plants: NT$12,000.

5. For hunting wild animals: NT$12,000-30,000.

5) Effective: October 17, 1989.

This brief and to-the-point set of regulations changed Danaiku from a toxic fish graveyard to an ecological paradise that is the pride of Taiwan.

The road to Danaiku

En route to the famous village of Shanmei, the taxi follows the ten-meter-wide concrete Mt. Ali Highway. It descends from Lungmei, at an altitude of over one kilometer, to Shanmei, at 700 meters, and along the way it passes colorful Tsou murals on the concrete retaining walls, characteristic Tsou pavilions surrounded by colorful flowers and grasses, and thatched craft studios built of giant miscanthus grass and bamboo. Motorists stop and take photos.

Finally the car arrives at legendary Danaiku, where you pass under two arched gateways to enter the Danaiku Ecological Park. This afternoon clouds and fog have come billowing in around the mountains, and the park's meandering paths impart the feeling of a scenic spot in ancient China. You descend stairs along a path lined with ferns and other shade-loving plants. The sound of the water running in the river makes you feel even cooler. The grasses enclosing the path beckon you forward. The sound of the water grows louder and suddenly you see the riverbed, strewn with boulders the height of three men. The water is emerald green in the deep spots, crystal clear in the shallows, and turns to ropes of white at the waterfalls.

Continuing forward, you come to the water recreation area, where the deep water calls to your toes. Quickening the pace now, you arrive at the riverbank underneath the Danaiku Bridge. As you approach the clear blue-green water, you can see Taiwan ku fish, fresh minnows, and groupers darting about like racecars jostling for position. "It's incredible how many fish there are!"

Danaiku is like a stage with many different rich layers, where mountain wind and river babble combine with the valley scenery of forests and bamboo groves. Surrounded by an audience of beautiful flowers and plants, a troupe of high mountain dancing fish perform in a natural theater, giving one dazzling show after another. Look! From time to time, a diamond sparkle flashes from the eyes of dancing fish. These are the Taiwan ku fish, and their eyes flash even more brilliantly in the sunlight. Legendary Danaiku is the miraculous creation of Kao Cheng-sheng and the 658 residents of the village.

Revenue topping NT$10 million

The Danaiku Ecological Park was established in 1995, and in 1996 its revenues totaled only NT$839,000. The following year they more than doubled to nearly NT$2 million. This rapid growth continued in the years that followed, and the figure topped NT$10 million in 2001. Currently there are nearly 80 village residents employed there as guides, plant tenders or sellers of souvenirs, traditional Tsou food or barbecued meat.

"In the last two years, more than ten youths have returned to the village to work, and the village's young people have also actively gotten involved with the Shanmei Community Development Association," says Chuang Ching-hui, park director. "There are people in the village who say that you'll earn more money in eight days in Danaiku than in one year in Taipei!"

And as spelled out in the bylaws, all the profits have been plowed back into Shanmei Village. The Shanmei Community Development Association, which was established in 1995, decides how the profits are to be invested in community development and village welfare projects. These have included scholarships, cash gifts to newlyweds, and a monthly stipend of NT$600 to village elders.

What difficulties were faced between the time that the bylaws were passed and Shanmei's self-sufficiency was attained? What setbacks were encountered? How were the villagers able to recover their paradise?

Kao's will

Kao Cheng-sheng has always been determined to realize the dream of Danaiku. He mentions that it was originally a sacred place of the Tsou people: "When hunters would pass through Danaiku, they would have to put their weapons away, for they couldn't kill any living being there." But during the era of Japanese rule, the Japanese discovered the camphor trees there and brought 300 workers to fell the trees and obtain the oil. In the Danaiku ecological park, you can still see six furnaces, which were used to extract the oil.

After the Japanese ignored the local taboos and extensively lumbered here, Tsou families themselves turned their backs on tradition and set up some dozen fish farms along the Danaiku River. Nevertheless, the families that owned the farms all respected the rules, and they didn't raid other farms for fish or kill others' fish with poisonous vines. And what poisonous sap they did use, they measured precisely so that it wouldn't seep into the other fish farms. "Every hundred feet of river bank for a fish farm was bought with three pigs, which shows how precious fish farms were," says Kao. In that era, apart from fish farms, the main source of income for the Tsou people of Shanmei was the large-scale harvesting of hemp and Makino bamboo, as well as the manufacture of value-added bamboo products.

In the 1980s, when the Mt. Ali Highway was opened, numerous tea plantations and high mountain vegetable farms opened on Danaiku's hilltops, and the mountain residents hereabouts began making the most of their income from seasonal work picking tea. But the tea farms used pesticides, which polluted the soil in Danaiku Valley. They also attracted more lowlanders to Danaiku, many of whom used electrocution or poison to catch fish. Seemingly overnight, Danaiku became a killing stream.

"The villagers were influenced for the worse and started to learn how to electrocute and poison fish themselves. Many more wanted to make a small fortune by cultivating tea," recalls Kao Cheng-sheng, who was then a Presbyterian missionary. Kao felt that the place had become much different from the Danaiku of his youth. He believed that the Tsou should find their strength in something that the Han Chinese lack-namely, the land beneath their feet. "If you want to learn Han Chinese ways of making money, by the time you finish learning them, there won't be any money to make with them."

"When I was traveling in South Africa in 1978, I realized that God taught that we ought to take care of the earth, that taking care of it is in fact our Christian duty." Kao gradually formed a conception that "developing tourism was the last hope for the people of Shanmei, and that the Taiwan ku fish was Shanmei's strongest tourist attraction!" After Kao explained this concept to the villagers, opinions were mixed: "Fish are for eating, not for looking at!" some said, while others expressed doubt that the idea could actually work.

To help realize his dream, in early 1987 Kao went with his two dogs to the source of the Danaiku River. There he spent 20 days conducting an environmental survey. That same year, he proposed an ecological recovery plan and worked with the Shanmei Village Tsou Tourism Association to convince the village residents and the families that owned land in the fishing districts. Three public hearings were held in each of the village's seven neighborhoods, and eventually a consensus was reached. Kao and his friend An Sheng-chi were also able to convince the owners of five fishing districts to donate the districts. In 1989 a village meeting was held, and a plan to close off the river was unanimously approved.

River guardians

A week after the plan was passed, Kao and some friends from the Presbyterian Church went about three kilometers away, to Kuishan and to a place where the Tsou tribal idols were kept. There they successfully obtained more than 10,000 fish fry. But difficulties lay ahead.

Although the citizens of the town had indeed passed the bylaws that prohibited fishing, there was at the time no way to enforce them under ROC law. Outsiders were skeptical of the whole thing and from time to time caused trouble. Kao trained his dog Du-Du to grab hold of and destroy fishing gear. His children, then in junior high and high school, would help him patrol the river on their vacations. "Back then my son Kao Tien-ming was in high school, and on Saturday nights he would often bring friends to keep watch by the river with blankets and dogs," he recalls. "It was really moving!"

Because it was not illegal under ROC law to fish along the river, the villagers would usually just try to persuade outsiders not to fish there. When persuasion failed, they would throw pebbles in the water to scare away the fish. And once, when the obscenities pouring from a fisherman's mouth enraged the river guardians, they threw him in. But usually, because most of the intruders were illegally using electricity or explosives to kill fish, they could just take them to the local police station. Tsou tribesmen themselves have been caught breaking the bylaws along the river only three times, and each time the lawbreaker has paid the fine. The total of NT$400,000 collected in fines has been used to purchase the land for the ecology park.

But for the first five or six years, the patrols were viewed skeptically by outside fishermen. "Are your private patrols and control of this river legal?" they would ask. As a result, many of the villagers had their own doubts about whether their actions were proper. Fortunately, in 1992 the Council of Agriculture gave Shanmei Village an award for being a model of ecological preservation. This affirmed that they were doing the right thing and made them more confident about pushing for the ecological park.

After the river protection plan had been pushed for two years, the number of Taiwan ku fish had increased to tens of thousands, at which time an area was opened for permit-based fishing as a means of generating funds for the ecological park. During this period, the villagers were hard at work getting the park ready. Finally, the park was formally established in 1995. The following year the park co-sponsored the "First Formosan Taiwan ku fish Fish Festival" with the China Times Cultural Foundation. This attracted more than 1000 visitors. "It was on television, and everyone felt that it was something fresh and interesting," says Kao, smiling proudly at the memory. "It was a big success!"

The park was further validated in 1997 when Danaiku won an "excellent" community rating from Chiayi County and a special county award for community excellence from the Taiwan Provincial Government. The Council of Aboriginal Affairs also recognized it for successfully promoting Aboriginal communities. In 1998 the Environmental Protection Administration included Danaiku among ten communities that were models of environmental protection. With these affirmations, the community began to obtain funding for such items as the widening of Route 129, building the Shangyu Bridge, park railings and the ceremonial arch, and paving and repaving the footpaths.

The Chiayi County government in 1999 declared it illegal under Article 44 Item 4 of the Fishing Law to fish or take plants in Danaiku, thus giving the prohibition on fishing there a legal basis. Furthermore, the Shanmei Community Development Association, which was established in 1995, took over managing the park, and sponsored a club for the elderly and courses in dance, rattan weaving, and leather working-all in the hope that with a basic education in these crafts, villagers could create handicrafts in the Tsou style, and sell them as souvenirs.

The future of Shanmei

In recent years, the success of Danaiku both in terms of natural conservation and tourism has caused many businessmen, underworld gangs and tourism companies to want to invest and get a piece of this large tourism pie. But all such offers have been refused, because, as Kao explains, "The people of Shanmei want to own this place themselves!" Kao says that once there were villagers who were tempted or unclear about the rules and took money, and the Community Development Association was insistent that they return it. Association members don't want to undo all that they've accomplished over these past few years.

Future plans for Danaiku call for a wildlife reserve. The reserve would hold Formosan wild boars, Chinese muntjacs, Formosan sambars, flying squirrels, Formosan rock monkeys and other animals indigenous to Taiwan. There are also plans for building a large-scale tourist hotel in Shanmei, which would create an additional 200 jobs.

The success of Shanmei has also resulted in the establishment of many laws governing mountain villages. In recent years the Chiayi County government has prohibited fishing in many mountain areas. Moreover, it has started to allow other communities to take a page from Shanmei's book and develop restrictive plans for their rivers. "The Tsou have been revitalized because of Danaiku, and Danaiku has been revitalized because of the Tsou!" And the rebirth of this paradise, which has allowed the people of Shanmei to pass along their natural heritage, has also set the standard for ecological education in Taiwan. It's Taiwan's most beautiful living legend.

p.084

The Taiwan ku fish has returned to Danaiku and brought new life to the Tsou of Shanmei.

p.085

The establishment of the Danaiku Ecological Park has given the Tsou new vitality, and in recent years many local youths who had moved away have returned home to help establish the park.

p.086

Traditional Tsou culture places great importance on group meals. They add spice to life and help to forge close bonds between villagers.

p.088

If you're lucky, when you come to Danaiku you might see some boars out for a stroll.

p.089

By contributing privately owned land to the nature preserve and helping to build wooden pavilions, the people of Shanmei Village have shown a willingness to share a better environment with their fellow tribesmen.

p.091

As a young boy Kao Cheng-sheng listened to his elders describing the legends of Danaiku. Kao was inspired to bring them back to life.

p.093

A child has just awoken from his nap on a rock. Has not the dream of Danaiku already taken root in his heart?