The Forestry and Nature Conservation Agency (FANCA) and Ryukoku University of Japan signed the Memorandum of Understanding on Friendship Forest Cooperation last year (2025), and both parties have gradually turned this consensus on cooperation into concrete actions. From September 11 to 13 this year (2026), 19 faculty members and students from Ryukoku University visited the Saisiyat community of Penglai Village in Nanzhuang Township, Miaoli County, for a Satoyama Study Internship Course. Ryukoku University will establish a Faculty of Environmental Sciences in April 2027 and will be offering a Taiwan Satoyama Internship Course. The experiences of Satoyama governance and indigenous forest co-management from Taiwan will further serve as a learning platform for Ryukoku University’s environmental education and talent cultivation. In recent years, the FANCA has worked with the Saisiyat community of Penglai Village to promote forest co-management, creating a triple-win situation for the community economy, forest ecology, and government governance. These achievements have been gradually garnering international attention. Ryukoku University, a major center for Satoyama studies in Japan, signed a tripartite memorandum of understanding (MOU) on friendship forests with the FANCA and Penglai Saisiyat Community last year (2025). The aim of this MOU is to jointly promote the preservation and utilization of traditional knowledge on mountains and forests, as well as to strive to realize the Satoyama vision of “harmony between man and nature.” PaKaSan of Nanzhuang (Taiwan) and the Ryukoku Forest (Japan) will serve as forest education venues to promote international cooperation between Taiwan and Japan, student education and research practices, and Satoyama governance exchanges. This January, Director General Lin Hwa-Ching of the FANCA led a delegation to Ryukoku University and reached a consensus on subsequent matters of cooperation and implementation directions. In August of this year, Taketo Tanigaki, Associate Professor of the Faculty of Policy Studies and Director of the Satoyama Studies Research Center at Ryukoku University, personally visited the Penglai Saisiyat Community for a week-long insect survey. With the assistance of the community members’ traditional ecological knowledge, he used modern scientific research techniques to supplement the community’s biodiversity data and documented the Formosa long-arm scarab (Cheirotonus formosanus), the only Level I protected large scarab beetle species in Taiwan. The relevant results will serve as an important scientific foundation for the tribal community to promote FSC ecosystem service certification and environmental education. The tripartite cooperation between Taiwan and Japan has been extended from exchanges and research to talent cultivation and curriculum planning. On September 3, four scholars from Ryukoku University visited the FANCA to discuss the establishment of the Taiwan Satoyama Internship Course for the Faculty of Environmental Sciences that the university plans to establish in April 2027. They also discussed field teaching sites, course contents, and future collaboration methods. If the course is successfully implemented in the future, the forest co-management experiences accumulated by PaKaSan of Nanzhuang and Penglai Saisiyat Community with the FANCA over the years will become practical learning material for Japanese university students, enabling them to understand Taiwan’s biodiversity and culture, forest governance that integrates the traditional ecological wisdom of indigenous peoples, and sustainable mountain and forest economies. During the Satoyama Study Internship Course from September 11 to 13, faculty and students from Ryukoku University gained an immersive experience of Penglai Saisiyat Community through the diverse aspects of Taiwan’s Satoyama Initiative and co-management of mountain forests. Students observed firsthand the Saisiyat people’s local wisdom in the sustainable use of forest resources, participated in FSC forest management practices, experienced Saisiyat culture and ecotourism, and learned about the development of forestry technology, such as the recycling of forestry residues. At the same time, through case studies of the under-forest economy such as beekeeping and shiitake mushroom cultivation, participants learned about how forest conservation can be integrated with community livelihoods and local development. The FANCA stated that, from signing the memorandum of understanding on friendship forest cooperation to researchers entering indigenous communities for field surveys, students participating in overseas Satoyama internships, and Ryukoku University establishing a Faculty of Environmental Sciences and planning the Satoyama Study Internship Course in Taiwan, the cooperation between Taiwan and Japan is progressing from the exchange of ideas to concrete practices in education and research. In the future, the traditional ecological wisdom of indigenous peoples, the FANCA’s experience in forest management, and the academic research capabilities of Ryukoku University will continue to be combined in order to deepen forest education, biodiversity research, and talent cultivation, thereby making Taiwan’s Satoyama experience an important practice platform for international environmental education and forest management exchanges.
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