Shan-Mei, a Tsou aboriginal village in Taiwan, is widely known as a legend of
environmental conservation, where ecotourism has been successfully combined with
integrated community development. Indigenous knowledge containing "ecological
wisdom" and decision-making based on consensus are perceived to be the greatest
contributors to this achievement.
I conducted three months of fieldwork in Shan-Mei, primarily using the methods of
participant observation and semi-structured interviews. The purpose of this study was
to reexamine the ecotourism and community development in Shan-Mei. I found that
the ecotourism project is ecologically based, but not ecologically sound. With a
combination of nature-based tourism and ethnic tourism, and later expansion into
mass tourism, Shan-Mei's ecotourism project yielded negative environmental impacts.
The unplanned development of mass tourism especially brought overcrowding that
endangered a fragile fish species and the surrounding ecosystem. Lack of education
about environmental issues created misperceptions among tourists and local people about the role of conservation in ecotourism. The community also faced problems of
inappropriate government intervention, declining local participation in the project, and
internal conflicts of interest. There was a need for better training and implementation
of the interpretive program, professional assistance by outside experts for
environmental assessment and planning, and better protection for indigenous rights in
the laws of the nation state. This case illustrates that ecologically sound ecotourism
not only requires indigenous knowledge but also expertise and legal protection that
recognizes local autonomy. Despite the shortcomings, the Shan-Mei community was
found to be proactive in creating a better future for its residents. The community used
the revenue from ecotourism and government aid to establish its own social welfare
program, fund various projects to revive traditional culture, assist agricultural
development, and improve everyone's quality of life. The community benefited from
ecotourism and community development in terms of inventing a hybrid Shan-Mei
culture and forming a stronger sense of identity and autonomy. Shan-Mei provides
invaluable lessons in its experience with ecotourism in its strategic adaptation to
modernization. / Graduation date: 2002
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ORGSU/oai:ir.library.oregonstate.edu:1957/28451 |
| Date | 25 July 2001 |
| Creators | Lee, Pei-Yao |
| Contributors | Young, John A. |
| Source Sets | Oregon State University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis/Dissertation |
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