Although surrounded by water, the people of Taiwan had
been living more like residents of a landlocked country
when it came to their leisure activities. In recent years,
however, restrictions on access to the sea have been relaxed,
and the magic of the sea is once again attracting holidaymakers.
In early March, a boat moored at the eastern coastal city of Hualien caught the attention of people interested in Taiwan's surrounding waters. The boat was preparing to circle Taiwan and collect data on the coastline. It seems not such a remarkable expedition for an island nation. Yet, for the last half-century, the people of Taiwan, mainly because of strict security regulations governing access to the sea, had lived more like people in a landlocked country. The coast was often inaccessible and sometimes treated as if it were undesirable real estate near a set of noisy old train tracks.
The vessel departing from Hualien, with its crew of ten, hoped to drum up interest in the sea around Taiwan. "The voyage was meant to tell the people of Taiwan that the ocean should be part of our living environment, and we should care for it," says Liao Hung-chi, co-founder of the Kuroshio Ocean Education Foundation, a nonprofit organization that planned the event. One month later, after visiting 21 fishing ports and circling the island, the boat returned home laden with visual and textual data on the natural, cultural, and historical aspects of the island's 1,141-kilometer-long shoreline. "We live on an island, but few know how to navigate at sea," says Liao. "I hope the data collected can kindle people's love for marine activities and help them explore the seas."
Liao became concerned about the state of Taiwan's coastal waters while working for five years as a fisherman. "The fish I caught became smaller and fewer in number, so I knew my friend was not well," he says affectionately of the ocean. In 1998, Liao co-founded the Kuroshio Ocean Education Foundation hoping to promote Taiwan's maritime culture and preserve the marine environment. Part of the problem, he believed, was that most Taiwanese were generally unaware of the waters around them. During the martial law period (1949-1987), civilians were generally forbidden from getting close to the ocean, except for occasional visits to several seaside resorts. The offshore islands also had heavily militarized coastlines. The islands of Kinmen, for example, had shores dotted with landmines to help protect the islands, formerly considered a frontline post, from amphibious assaults and infiltration by frogmen from the Chinese mainland. The defenses, however, also prevented local people from enjoying the coast and cut them off from the sea.
Under the military restrictions, civilian interest in the seas and coastal areas faded. Many ignored the coastline altogether, except when looking for a location for junk piles and incinerators. Industrial zones, such as those on the island's western shore, also began to crop up on the coast. "The ocean played a marginal role in our life, and the coastal areas were just home to things we prefer to stay away from," notes Emilio Tseng, a crew member of the boat circling Taiwan's coast. As a result, the island nation for a time turned its back on the sea, forgoing both the great resources it offers and its natural beauty.
With the slow easing of tensions across the Taiwan Strait over the past few decades and the abolition of martial law in 1987, Taiwan's coastline got a second chance for civilian use. Offshore islands that had been heavily militarized were opened to the outside world, including Kinmen, where a national park was established in 1995. A more recent case is the liberation of Gueishan Island off the coast of Ilan in northeast Taiwan. Used until recently as a firing range during naval exercises, the island became accessible to the public three years ago and started to attract tourists eager to admire its scenery, still beautiful after years of shelling.
After debating national security concerns and overcoming worries about an increase in smuggling and illegal immigration, the Cabinet-level Coast Guard Administration further eased the restrictions on public access to the seas in November 2001. Together with the Ministry of National Defense and the Ministry of the Interior, it announced the lifting of restrictions over parts of Taiwan's coast: The length of the coast under control around the clock was shortened from 28.1 to 26.9 kilometers, while that under control during a certain period of a day was shortened from 270.3 to 56.1 kilometers. In the same month, a major change in the Statute for the Development of Tourism took place. Unlike the old version that listed lawful waters for water activities, the revised one allows people more access by listing only unlawful ones. In other words, all coastal areas, unless specifically prohibited, are open to the public for leisure activities.
Restrictions governing marine transportation were also relaxed. Since 1999, boats were no longer required to land at the same port they departed from. The same year saw another significant breakthrough, namely that pleasure boats were no longer limited to taking people out to sea to fish. According to Liao, it used to be that before boarding one had to show a fishing rod to prove that he was an angler. "That's ridiculous," he says. "What if I just prefer to watch people fish?"
Today, recreational craft take people into the surrounding seas just to take in the sea air and see the beauty of the island from a new perspective. Whale and dolphin watching excursions are also increasingly popular. A warm current, called the Kuroshio, which flows from the equator to Japan, brings herds of marine mammals to Taiwan's eastern shoreline. Sea tours of the eastern coastline with its stunning cliffs and rising peaks in the background also visit herds of frolicking sea mammals. These tours are fast becoming Taiwan's most popular activity on the sea, bringing people eager to watch the marine mammals to the shores of Ilan, Hualien, and Taitung.
Travel along the blue highways can be a convenient and pleasant way for tourists to get away to another part of Taiwan or simply a new way to admire the island. "The grandeur of the promontories on the island's rugged eastern coast is certainly much more impressive when seen from the ocean than from the land," says Saga Dai, executive director of the Kuroshio Ocean Education Foundation, who traveled on the boat circling Taiwan in early March.
Travel on these blue highways is being promoted by many local governments, and the routes are expanding. Well-traveled marine highways now include the route in northern Taiwan connecting Keelung and the offshore Keelung Islet, the waterway in east Taiwan linking the Ilan coast and Gueishan Island, as well as a route in southern Taiwan between Kaohsiung and Pingtung. More ambitious possibilities are being discussed, such as a plan to create a water link between Orchid Island off the southeastern shore and the Batan Islands in the Philippines.
In alignment with the central government's efforts to embrace the ocean, local governments have started holding large-scale events at sea. This year the Pingtung County government chose the Dapeng Bay National Scenic Area as the venue for a month-long festival where canoeing, sailing, and other leisure activities were held in the lagoon. And last October, 17 teams from nine nations met in Penghu, a group of islands in the Taiwan Strait also known as the Pescadores, to take part in a 49ers regatta (a race for 4.9m dinghies) co-organized by the local government. The international event, which got worldwide media coverage and helped boost the image of Penghu, was so successful that it is scheduled to take place again this coming fall and stands a good chance of becoming an annual event in the island chain.
Despite the loosening of restrictions on the use of Taiwan's coastal waters and the government's encouragement for more coastal activities, there are still many problems to be solved. "Now the biggest one is the lack of good facilities," notes Su Cherng-tyan, director-general of the Tourism Bureau under the Ministry of Transportation and Communications. Today, for example, there are only two marinas for yachts on the entire coastline of Taiwan, and a good deal of resistance to creating more. Almost all the places suitable for the construction of ports have long been occupied exclusively by the fishing industry. The industry, moreover, is attempting to hold on to its monopoly on the ports--resisting plans to divide the port facilities between fishing vessels and tourist boats. Over the past three years, however, the competing parties have reached some arrangements, and the Tourism Bureau and the Fisheries Administration of the Council of Agriculture have successfully changed four ports once used exclusively for fishing into models for shared use between the two industries. The ports have newly built facilities that function as tourist centers as well as floating quays for pleasure boats and yachts.
The overlap between fishing grounds and tourist waters is another thorny problem, according to Ou Ching-hsiewn, associate professor of the Department of Fishery Science of National Taiwan Ocean University. Many troubles have arisen between fishermen and operators of marine tourist vessels over just how much of the sea each is entitled to. Some fishermen have already been compensated for sharing the coastal waters with tourist vessels, but Ou notes that it is hard to find a standard mechanism for deciding on the amount of compensation. These problems, though by no means insurmountable, are certainly slowing the process of creating a tourist-friendly environment by the sea.
In addition, some of the blue highways seem to have proved less popular than expected. Boats traveling on these waterways are more like ferries than pleasure boats, notes Ou, "because there's not much that's impressive to see on the boat trip." Public works, such as concrete levees commonly found along Taiwan's shoreline, certainly have a negative effect on the seaside landscape and on the quality of beaches. "The climate also greatly influences the development of Taiwan's marine tourism," he adds. That is true especially in winter, when the northeast seasonal wind is strong, and most tourist activities on the sea have to be stopped. "That means operators must figure out ways to keep up business during the low season by, for example, developing indoor water activities. Otherwise, it's difficult to create a sustainable industry."
All these challenges will have to receive serious attention if an oceanic Taiwan is to become more than a slogan. Taiwan will also need well-trained guides to make marine tours entertaining and educational, and a turnaround in the public's travel habits. Many Taiwanese still prefer to avoid getting a suntan and are not yet used to the idea of a holiday at sea. "I hope they finally will change their habit of driving busily around on land on their holidays and find the unique pleasure of relaxing with the ocean as their company," says Saga Dai. When that day comes, the people of Taiwan will surely understand why Taiwan's oceanic culture can be a source of pride and open up a part of the island's life that has long been neglected. "If we turn our back on the ocean," says Liao Hung-chi of the Kuroshio Ocean Education Foundation, "we virtually abandon half of Taiwan's future."