Aborigines show city-dwellers how to be earth-friendly consumers

["Taiwan Church News" <enews@pctpress.org>]

3060 Edition

October 18~24, 2010

Headline News

Aborigines show city-dwellers how to be earth-friendly consumers

Reported by Chiou Kuo-rong

Written by Lydia Ma



Farmers promoting environmental-friendly agriculture and 

Aborigines affected by Typhoon Morakot held an exhibition 

and set up several booths at National Taiwan University on 

October 16~17, 2010, to raise public awareness for more 

earth-friendly lifestyle choices.



Taiwan Rural Front, one of the event organizers, also led 

discussions at a few forums to teach people how to be 

“green” consumers so that they could satisfy their needs 

without destroying or polluting their country’s soil and 

villages. 



The organization’s spokeswoman, Tsai Pei-hui, underscored 

that reducing the use of harmful pesticides or chemicals 

would go a long way in increasing the value of crops, which 

would in turn translate into higher earnings for farmers as well. 



This awareness program was coined “Bow to Land” and 

included forums educating city-dwellers on how they could 

help farmers and rural residents, and be more earth-friendly 

in their daily consumption. But one of the program’s main 

goals included kick-starting conversation between 

consumers and producers – in this case, peasant farmers – 

and allow the latter to teach former how to make smart, 

earth-friendly choices when buying produce.



Chin-He Presbyterian Church member Liu Hsing-chien 

remarked that the purpose of this “Bow to Land” awareness 

program is to teach people how to live humbly – much like 

Jesus did. He stressed that Aborigines have had to learn to 

get by with humble means after last year’s Typhoon Morakot 

and their circumstances have affected other areas of their 

lives, including how they do farming.



Liu especially thanked churches across Taiwan for their 

support and aid in the months following Typhoon Morakot 

which contributed greatly to the gradual recovery of 

Aborigine villages devastated by the typhoon.



As for Chin-He reservation and its church which belongs to 

South Bunun Presbytery, its main source of income for the 

time being has been an assortment of plums, plum jelly, 

and lemon jelly. Lila, an elder from Chin-He Church, is 

grateful that her village managed to overcome so much 

since last year and she credits it to people who supported 

and reached out to them. She believes their expressions of 

concern model the core values of this “Bow to Land”

program.



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