Taipei Times
Date: Jan 27, 2020
By: Yang Yuan-ting and Dennis Xie / Staff reporter, with staff writer
The Forestry Bureau’s new “Forest of Wood” calendar is following the success of 2018’s
The January page from this year’s “Forest of Wood” calendar published by the Forestry Bureau is pictured on Jan. 17 in Taipei.
Photo courtesy of the Forestry Bureau
January’s page in this year’s calendar features Taiwanese wooden folk toys, because the bureau wants to raise awareness of ecological conservation among young people in urban areas with the calendars, Director-General Lin Hwa-ching (林華慶) said.
“A calendar is a good way to open a dialogue with the public. Before we can convince people how important it is to conserve forested areas and win their support, we must let them know that the bureau exists,” he said.
Most people know very little about the bureau, but it is the central government body that promotes ecological conservation, managing nearly half of the total land in the nation, including 1.62 million hectares of government-owned forests and protected forests, he said.
The bureau issued many publications and hosted speeches and seminars, but never managed to reach a wider audience than those who were already interested in forestry, so he decided to use a different approach when he took office in 2016, Lin said.
Drawing on his experience at the Ministry of Culture, he replaced photographs in the annual calendar with hand-drawn illustrations, because he thought young people would like the more lively style, he said. [FULL STORY]
