Tung Chun-fa
Paiwan community, Taiwan
Most serious problem is that these couple of years there have been typhoons, earthquakes and higher temperature. Because of climate change mountains are crumbling, the river has changed the way it is going, the village could disappear and be destroyed.
'Without the right relationship with nature we can’t maintain our traditional culture'
Without the right relationship with nature we can’t maintain our traditional culture.
We have a special relationship with nature. When we fish, we don’t fish all the time. We never say bad words in the mountain valley because there is an echo. We sing and communicate with the mountain valley.
In our community you have to name land, so we identify land like a human being like a newborn baby, it is an important custom we have. When the government takes over land it gets a number – or just forest land.