The Department of Forestry at National Pingtung University of Science and Technology (NPUST) has been deeply involved in the development of Satoyama economies for many years, and their Ministry of Education supported project (Satoyama Deep Economies 2.0 – Ecotourism Alliance Development and Carbon Sequestration Talent Cultivation) continues to yield fruitful results. In order to further promote the initiative, from July 7th to 13th (2025), young representatives from the Indonesian Ecotourism Network (INDECON) were invited to participate in a series of cross-border ecotourism and community development exchange activities.
INDECON is an ecological tourism organization which plays an active and important role in the Asian region, providing long-term support for community participation, sustainable tourism development, and nature conservation. Having accumulated considerable local and international experience, the organization is able to provide advice on best ecotourism practices to Taiwan’s New Southbound Policy partners. During the exchange, the itinerary included visits to a number of iconic local communities including Wutai, Majia, Mudan, and Manzhou in Pingtung, Liugui in Kaohsiung, and Touwu in Mioali. The sites were selected to highlight food and drink culture, ethnic plant use, natural culture, ecological scenery, wildlife coexistence mechanism and more.
The three visiting Indonesian youth representatives have extensive practical experience in community building and ecotourism. Their professional backgrounds span architecture, development planning, and tourism management, and they have long been involved in community-oriented tourism strategizing, cultural preservation, and local participation. They have also participated in many ecotourism development projects which were promoted independently by communities, including spatial transformation, guided experience design, traditional cultural revitalization, and youth empowerment. Based on their experience, they emphasized that tourism should return to community subjectivity, so that local voices and culture can be truly seen. Their models of development fully reflect the intertwined relationship between ecotourism, cultural sustainability, and community development, and they were able to provide profound and diverse insight for the participants in the exchange.
