Part B. Forest Research to Save Tree Diversity

However, Lanyu is struggling with the dilemma between the traditional life style and economic development. For the last several decades, the tropical rain forest is viewed as preventing the development of modern Lanyu communities. Both the lowland and the slow hills face the heavy human population housing and developmental pressure. Now, the great green and diverse forest is not longer a daily dependent resource at all. Otherwise, the young in local communities and outside developers see the jungles scattering with useless "weeds", without timber logging and great attraction, e.g. some beautiful orchid flowers.

People have a need to earn cash to pay the electric bills, hospital costs, and the imported food and goods from Taiwan. They tried to cut down the jungle and clear more land to farm. That is what happens when they hunt the wildlife, collect the rare tree species, burn the forest to make the poor soil farmland, and then desert it (Rowe et. al. 1992). The short-term income by selling the wood and agricultural by-products seems not satisfy their demand, and the overexploited harvesting damages the ecosystem function and biodiversity. Due to the small area size in Lanyu, the silviculture and farming are not the best way to make a living. Another strategy needs to be developed to sustain the natural resources, especially in a tropical rain forest. . That is why this research wants to make a different change with those conditions. The research goal is to make biodiversity "valuable" for the modern communities in Lanyu again. There should be a very urgent and significant need to re-evaluate their tropical trees in the conservation and economic senses.

In the beginning, this conservation research is funded by the Governments and Enviornmental Organizations (GEO) to identify the dangerous trees, which would have potentially horticultural and medical utilities. The working team realizes that much general knowledge of tropical rain forest and tree management exists (Clark 1990). But many relative questions remain open because the different site conditions vary case by case. The primary objective in this research is to clarify what method works in our economic project without hurting biodiversity. We will determine which strategy of rain forest management is sustainable. Our management should be oriented toward sustaining biodiversity and the economic demand of the communities in the future.

First, this study will identify what is unknown for the tree ecology and planting knowledge in the tropical rain forest. We will ask the people who have worked on the basic survey, such as government staff, other NGOs, and some professional colleagues. Next, we will decide the importance of those gaps in biodiversity information. This project will hire the elder and young walking through the usual trails, ecological gaps and ecotones to survey the most common and successful tree species. The project especially focus more on abundance and distribution of potentially horticultural and medical trees, rather than obtaining a tree list from early to late succession. According to the different topography, disturbance history, and the distance to the crown gaps, the working team will also classify the main vegetation types by its characteristics of habitat patches (Bulloc & Solis-Magallenus 1990). The group will learn the general plantation knowledge by addressing the key habitat classification, which experience will benefit the further economic reproduction project section.

In addition, by studying why those shade or sun plants exist in a specific narrow range of ecological niches, the team will obtain the primary abilities and skills to regulate the successful planting, such as seed dormancy and germination, seedling survivorship, growth rate and mortality of young trees, and its phenology and nutritional status (Augsburger 1984a,b). The team also seeks the optimal and productive methods to plant the different trees under the little disturbed forest shades, or to cultivate them in an artificial environment under the different required growth criteria (Borchert 1980), even though there is still a big shortage for the clear and complete identification and taxonomy research in Lanyu's forest area. Sometimes, even though we lack some information and certainty, we still can operate our approach without major difficulties. Finally, in thinking through necessary knowledge, we will focus on a suspected problem area, and develop a comprehensible and practical method to cover the difficulties, such as promoting seedling survivorship, conducting reproductive seeds, and avoiding inbreeding. Lastly, we will develop a reliable and compatible set of indicators for monitoring and evaluating the biodiversity in the tropics.