It seemed like it was going to be a beautiful day in much of Taiwan as we flew out of Taoyuan International Airport in a fully packed but comfortable China Airlines at 9 a.m. Just when I thought there was nothing visible from my window seat but sea and clouds or monolithic sky, the plane traversed the island and cut across its dramatic mountainous spine. It is the stupendousness of this mountainous terrain that will leave an indelible mark in my memory.
The Philippines may have its archipelagic peculiarity (see last year’s blog)–as a few other countries have, especially Indonesia–but Taiwan in my mind holds the true geographic mark of the enfante terrible. The island is smaller than Mindanao and comparable in size as Sri Lanka, but the size and scale of its mountains suggests that only a continental landmass can support such breadth. The scale of the mountains that belies the size of the island is emphasized by their sheer verticality. It did not come as a surprise, therefore, to know that the mountains are still growing from the relentless subduction of the Philippine plate beneath the immense Eurasian plate. That volcanism alone cannot explain much of Taiwanese topography all the more underscores the tremendous power of tectonic forces.
The Taiwanese people, especially the environmentally conscious and geographically curious, are fortunate to live in an island nation that has struck a balance between economic development, catapulting it into material prosperity, and ecological preservation, leaving a legacy of verdant and seemingly virgin forests blanketing much of anything that is at least 100 feet above sea level. Call it amazing foresight or careful geopolitical planning, the nation has managed to build a megalopolis from north and south stringed with small towns and interspersed with farms while keeping the mountains virtually undeveloped. Like Japan, the price to pay for keeping the forests intact is to import lumber from nations that have less environmentally sound policies that allow exploitation. Does someone else always have to pay the price to make other nations win accolades for their sound environmental policy?
By contrast, the highest point in the Philippines, Mt. Apo in Mindanao, is 3,000 feet shy of Taiwan’s Yushan Mountain. The Philippines has its share of rugged mountain topography–true to its nature of being nestled on the same subduction zone as Taiwan albeit having more volcanic activity. Perhaps partly because of the accessibility of the mountains given their less steep topography compared to Taiwan’s, the forests of the Philippines have been trammeled by logging and slash-and-burn agriculture. Tracks of virgin forest have become more discontinuous and are less obvious as we flew into Northern Luzon. Enforcing sound environmental policies to maintain virgin tracts of forest is complicated by economics and cultural mindsets, not to mention population growth. Landslides and flooding that beset many rural villages attest to daunting environmental challenges. The damage can be undone, but not without marshaling a nationwide change in environmental perspective.