*3.5. TEK in Crisis*

According to the brief introduction to local marine TEK based on the categories identified by Berkes, Colding, and Folke [15], many recent studies imply that either the indigenous TEK per se is significant [30,31] or it is also effective for sustainable environmental management in collaboration with modern scientific knowledge and technology [32–34]. TEK among A'tolan Amis freediving spearfishing men could provide the basis for managing the local marine area. However, it is too romantically depicted. There are still changes happening in the environment, so TEK needs to evolve to be relevant to contemporary environmental issues. The most serious problem, for now, is the decrease in fish species in the A'tolan traditional marine area. The main reasons for this, in the understanding of the local spearfishing men, include typhoon impacts (especially Typhoon Morakot in 2009), too many commercial fishing boats using trawl and gill nets illegally, some people leaving their gill nets underwater, too many chemical insecticides being used in agriculture and flowing into the sea following rain, etc.

Typhoons and climate change are the most serious problems for the marine area of the A'tolan area from the perspective of spearfishing men. Although spearfishing men have been aware of slight changes in the water temperature for the past few years, Typhoon Nepartak, in July 2016, confirmed that the weather is changing. Typhoon Morakot, in 2009, caused very serious problems; the elders of the A'tolan Amis said that they had never experienced a typhoon that caused so much damage, especially to the coral-reef system in Taitung. In fact, in the TEK of the A'tolan Amis, typhoons are not always devastating. In their past experience, typhoons from the Pacific Ocean hit Taiwan basically every summer; sometimes, typhoons clean up the sand deposited on the bottom of inshore sea and give coral reefs a chance to regenerate. However, the typhoon phenomenon in the past few years has exceeded the understanding of the A'tolan Amis. Some typhoons are particularly violent such as Morakot in 2009 and Nepartak in 2016. From 2019 to August 2020, no typhoon even hit Taiwan. This phenomenon is beyond the past experience of A'tolan Amis, and the people can only guess it may be evidence of climate change.

Developing sustainable natural-resource management in the local marine area will need to rely on the contributions of both government agencies, ocean scientists, and environmental NGOs and Amis spear fishers—with each of these parties recognizing the strengths and limitations of the others.

#### **4. The Dilemma of Marine Management**

For the past three decades, studies on CBNRM have focused on the idea and practice of co-management between the government and local community. There have been many discussions and studies on forest management focusing on co-management between the indigenous community and the government, in the form of the Forestry Bureau in Taiwan [35–38]. However, it is ironic that Taiwan is an island state, yet the government concerns itself with fisheries more than with managing marine resources and attempts to use a top-down strategy to control marine resources. The government, which takes charge of the ocean natural resources, needs to think about how to manage them efficiently alongside the local community, and vice versa. The following section describes the dilemma of marine management from the point of view of both the government and the A'tolan.
