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Abstract:  

In this talk, I use watershed protection to connect developments in flood control, forestry, hydraulic engineering, and Indigenous policy from Japanese colonial rule through the early post-WWII period in Taiwan. I begin from the premise that watersheds, while seemingly a straightforward description of physical drainage, are freighted with social and political meanings. Taiwan's watersheds acquired new meanings in the early 1910s, when major lowland flooding generated a new intereste in tracing sources of erosion and flooding upstream into the mountains. Japanese colonial foresters in particular used the logic of watershed interconnection to stigmatize upland Indigenous environmental practices and blame them for floods in the plains; such specious conservationist claims contributed to violent forced relocations. Beginning in the 1930s, the construction of large dams created reservoir watersheds–a new technical object whose residents became subject to environmental scrutiny.

Because Taiwan's rivers transect the boundary between highland and lowland, a history that follows their flows helps understand the island's integration across multiple political regimes. At the same time, the violence of watershed protection in Taiwan offers a cautionary tale to the many environmentalists who have long looked to watersheds as capable of instilling an ecological ethic grounded in a recognition of interconnection.

本演講不需報名，歡迎與會。