17 May 2000 Asia 2000 Foundation backs Lincoln-Taiwan water resources project

Lincoln University expertise in environmental management and environmental education is the basis of a new scientific and communication partnership between New Zealand and Taiwan, supported by the Asia 2000 Foundation.

The partnership, specifically in the area of water resources and primarily between Lincoln University and the National Taiwan Normal University, has been initiated with a visit to Taiwan by two Lincoln staff members.

The aim of the project is to improve awareness and management of water resources through drawing on contrasting problems and experiences in the two different cultures of Taiwan and New Zealand.

While in Taiwan to initiate the linkage, Associate Professor Graeme Buchan, an environmental physicist, and Communication lecturer Colleen Mills attended a two-day workshop on the protection of water and wildlife resources in the newest of Taiwan's several national parks, Shei-Pa, located in the wilderness mountain area of north-central Taiwan.

"We were treated as guests of honour at this workshop and were invited to participate in two ceremonies, both covered extensively by the Taiwanese news media," says Associate Professor Buchan.

"One was a tree-planting and the other was the release of captive-bred young fry of the Formosan Landlocked salmon. This is an endangered and protected species of salmon which, unlike most salmon, is 'landlocked' and completes its life cycle within a single river system without a marine migration stage."

The intensive use of water resources in Taiwan, associated water problems, and heightened need for environmental education, all impressed themselves on the New Zealand visitors.

Also obvious, they said, were problems with the management of solid wastes, particularly in remoter rural areas.

"Mountain valleys are frequently marred by 'landslides' of waste reaching down from the roadsides to streams below," said Associate Professor Buchan.

"The double-pronged approach of our project – science and communication – could equally well be applied to changing these waste management practices, but at the same time we have to be aware of a major cultural element in perceptions of 'good' environmental management."

Colleen Mills points out that resource management strategies need to be understood as being culturally based and as such a product of a society's prevailing world view.

"That's what is so exciting and innovative about this project," says Colleen, "we are bringing in a dimension of cross-cultural education and communication. For example, different cultures view water in different ways and at the end of the day scientists and educators have to take these different views into account.

"It is now recognised that in trying to change behaviour in society you have to take the multi-disciplinary approach with scientific knowledge being only one of the dimensions."

The New Zealand-Taiwan project will run for 12 months with a reciprocal visit by a Taiwanese educator to Lincoln University scheduled for later this year.

Ian Collins, Journalist, Lincoln University, Canterbury, New Zealand