More than ten years ago, within the strict walls, among the lush greenery and chaotic grass, I vaguely saw a Japanese-style building, which was uninhabited; today, it is a community park for citizens to relax, and there are huge mango trees in the park, which are rumored to be more than 100 years old, and there are also trees commonly found in urban spaces such as Melaleuca and Taiwan Luan trees. However, in the past two years, there have been several thin cherry trees in the garden, mixed between the original trees, and now several of them have dried up.
A few years ago, a friend invited everyone to visit, and in the garden outside the luxurious house, his big finger pointed to the flower garden, and proudly said to everyone, "I got a Yoshino cherry blossom." "Time has passed, I wonder how that cherry tree is now?" In recent years, the outbreak of cherry blossom viewing boom, in order to the annual two-week "Hanami" season, local governments have many actions to plant cherry trees: those planted in urban areas, often cut down the original planting of street trees, garden trees, and replant foreign Yoshino cherry blossoms, foreign cherry trees are not in poor growth condition, full of dead branches, or in the short term of the fate of death; and planted in the suburbs of the mountains, the climate is appropriate, perhaps the growth status is acceptable, but all single varieties of planting methods, for the fragile Taiwan island ecology, Disregard for ecological balance is worrying.
Transplanting Yoshino Sakura's deeds has been seen in Taiwan in the Japanese era a hundred years ago: as the Japanese ruling forces gradually entered the mountains, newspaper reporters accidentally found Taiwan's native mountain cherry blossoms near Bamboo Lake, this scene greatly touched the nostalgia of the Japanese people in Taiwan at that time, even if the road into the mountains in the early days of Japanese rule was not perfect, and the cherry blossom customs of Taiwan and the home country were not the same, it still led to the trend of cherry blossom viewing at that time; later, because of the invasion of flower viewing and agricultural activities, the cherry trees were lost year by year. Also because of the political purpose of promoting the meaning of domination, the government began to plan to transplant cherry trees in the mountains, and under the need of the people to relax, enjoy, and "create the scenery of the mainland", the rich people's gardens in the city and other public occasions also planted cherry blossoms. When the figure of cherry blossoms gradually becomes clear in Taiwanese society, while creating an unprecedented cultural atmosphere at all levels, we clearly see the close relationship between plants and human society. Nowadays, it is difficult to find cherry trees planted in the urban areas of Taiwan during the Japanese rule, especially Yoshino cherry blossoms from the mother country of Japan, which have never grown well.
However, if the plant fails to express affection and pain, who cares how close it is to the wrong transplant and death?
Kawakami's Transplant Philosophy
Takiya Kawakami was a botanist during the Japanese occupation who served as a technician at the Governor's Office of Taiwan and director of the Taiwan Museum. In 1911, when the Taiwan official initially began to transplant the mother country Yoshino Sakura, he pointed out in the "Taiwan Daily News" that:
At the time of transplantation, when transplanting and cultivating native species of cherry blossoms suitable for the land of the main island as much as possible, the cherry blossoms of the South Tou Kirishe are the first, and the last side is the mainland cherry blossoms.
Even with nostalgia, home country impressions, and the official mission of cherry blossom planting to promote long-term colonization and "permanent residence" policies, Mr. Kawakami still adheres to the basic understanding of botanists and suggests that the cultivation of cherry trees should be mainly native species. Looking back at the recent swarm of bees planting cherry trees in Taiwan, people's eyes are only limited to the gorgeous sea of flowers, do you care about the life and death of foreign plants?
As mentioned earlier, the problem of Yoshino cherry blossoms is that the ecological imbalance of a single species is due to the artificial cutting of native species, and the cherry tree itself is extremely short-lived due to water and soil. At present, the problems we see seem to be limited to the transplant as and the transplanted object itself, and there is no sign of outward spread. However, the transplantation of other exotic plants, such as cycads, has brought extremely serious problems: cycad seedlings imported from Vietnam have entered Taiwan with white-wheeled shield shell insects, and the iron trees, branches and buds that have suffered from insect pests have died because of the sap sucked by small insects, resulting in the inability of yellow to photosynthesis.
Alien plants are prone to attach insect eggs or small insects, and when these insects arrive, there is a chance of unimaginable and even difficult to control disasters in the new ecological world. Needless to say, the small-flowered vine orchid, the large-flowered salty grass, and the South American tortoise chrysanthemum, which are well-known alien invasive species, have extremely strong vitality, spread and grow wildly, and are all over the only land in Taiwan, robbing other native plants of growth space, and even animals that coexist with these native plants are difficult to survive.
Whenever the problem of invasive alien species comes to the fore, uprooting it seems to be the most effective way to solve the problem; but what if we deal with not plants, but living animals? And what about the egyptian holy salient that is extremely beautiful in appearance? Uprooting and culling is something that you and I can accept?
More than 30 years ago, the Egyptian sacred bird was introduced to Taiwan through folk zooists, and then escaped due to mismanagement, and quickly multiplied in the wild, seizing the nesting points of native birds and eating eggs or young birds of other birds, which has seriously endangered the survival of Taiwan's native birds. In recent years, the Forest Service has tried to control its population through more humane practices such as the removal of nests and bird eggs, but with limited success. Now the authorities have invited scholars and experts to discuss and recommend that a culling order be issued for the Egyptian holy relic.
At a time when animal protection awareness was rising, and the subject was such a large, eye-catching bird, the Forest Service did its homework seriously, including: setting lasso traps, concentrating immediately after capture, reducing the struggle time, and various field work specifications; in the field of animal euthanasia, they consulted professional veterinarians and referred to relevant operational guidelines. In view of the long-term countermeasures for the prevention and control of the holy grain in Egypt, experts and scholars have reached the following conclusions:
"Invasive alien species have been recognized as an important mechanism for biodiversity loss, and their threat is second only to habitat destruction, and some even believe that invasive alien species are simply the main cause of habitat loss and thus species extinction."
Nevertheless, unfortunately, we will face another bloody scene; after all, the maintenance of biodiversity is the current mainstream consciousness, so that the focus of the discussion at this stage has been reduced to: how to kill the Egyptian holy man.
From the Yoshino cherry blossoms that appear around us to the eye-catching Egyptian holy trees on the river beach, why is it always artificial ignorance, or deliberate blindness that only focuses on the interests of human society, leading to the dry slaughter of cherry trees. Why?
Today, the laws of most countries, based on the profits of human society, vaguely encourage the introduction of alien species, such as pets, agronomic crops, horticultural crops, and natural enemies for biological control. Therefore, legislation prohibiting the introduction of foreign species, maintaining biodiversity, implementing source management, and protecting animals and plants from the threat of human death is the right way, and it is really difficult to delay.