Paradigm shift in the institutional arrangement of protected areas management in Taiwan-a case study of Wu-Wei-Kang Waterfowl Wildlife Refuge in Ilan, Taiwan

The Wu-Wei-Kang Wildlife Refuge, located at the southern end of the Lang-Yang Plain in Ilan County, Taiwan, is aimed at protecting the wintering waterfowl and their habitat. While reviewing its management activities and analyzing aerial photographs of neighboring areas in the early 1990s, we found that refuge management had overlooked human factors, which contributed to the succession process of turning the refuge from a wetland into a dry land. This oversight led to serious habitat degradation for the waterfowls. In 1996, a grassroots-level conservation initiative emerged, which engaged in habitat restoration on private lands near the core zone of the wetland but outside the Wildlife Refuge. This effort led to improvements in the quality of the habitat for waterfowl. Consequently, the Government has since adopted a more interventionist approach to refuge management, and been more willing to cooperate with grassroots-level NGOs in the following years. Generally, these results indicated that local governments should have more policy-making authority and resources (i.e., financial support) for managing wildlife refuges. Power sharing played a key role in enabling the management of the Wu-Wei-Kang Wildlife Refuge to build up partnership relationships with grassroots-level conservation organizations, local communities and other interested parties, such as academicians. We also found that economic incentives are crucial for a wildlife refuge to gain full support from local communities. All these factors will be crucial in the effort to consolidate the shift in management paradigm and future development of the Wildlife Refuge system in Taiwan.