*4.2. Problem Framing, Discourses, and Scale Issues*

From the early 2000s to the early 2010s, with the growth of the forest and the opening and operation of the forest park, stakeholders with different positions developed conflicting views on the park. As the official managing authority of the park, the Forest Bureau has always looked at management issues from a national perspective. In the management plan of the DFA forest park, the Hualien Branch of the bureau clearly stated the following objectives: enhancing carbon sequestration, improving environmental quality and aesthetics, conserving biodiversity, promoting ecotourism, environmental education, and local development, and conserving Amis culture [37]. These goals relate mainly to the provision of national-level public goods and regional common-pool resources. The main target beneficiaries of these ecosystem services are the general public of the country. Local residents may also benefit from these services, and local development is indeed listed as a major goal, but, in fact, this is at most only a side effect of the real motivation for designating a forest park, namely environmental conservation. Notably, in the problem framing and policy discourse of the management plan, no particular consideration was given to the historical context of the land grab and the costs that local residents had to bear, especially in terms of indigenous rights.

As one of few large forests in otherwise over-developed plain areas, the DFA park's potential role in biodiversity conservation also attracted the attention of academics and environmental nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). In addition to helping to conserve rare species in the plains, the main focus of discussion is whether the DFA is a potential ecological corridor between the protected national forests of the Central and the East Coastal mountain ranges. Some researchers have studied the topic. Individual academics and NGOs have also presented proposals for an ecological corridor; they have advocated enhancing the protection of DFA forests and minimizing human use. As the major government authority in charge of nature conservation, the Forestry Bureau has expressed a high level of interest in the idea of an ecological corridor. Researchers have since determined that the DFA has indeed begun to function as an ecological corridor [38,39]. The Forestry Bureau launched a national ecological network plan in 2018 that treated the DFA forest as a critical corridor in eastern Taiwan.

The Forestry Bureau, some scholars, and environmental NGOs consider DFA governance issues mainly from environmental perspectives; by contrast, the TSC and local communities are primarily concerned about economic utilization and local livelihoods. TSC is a government-owned enterprise that legally owns the land and forests of the DFA forest park. It essentially expects and strives to reap economic benefits through a more intensive use of land and forest resources. However, it must also follow the government's current conservation-oriented policy.

Indigenous communities are primarily concerned with the ownership of land and natural resources rights. Their main political appeal to the state regarding DFA land is that the state should return the land to them and let them decide autonomously how to use the land. Most indigenous residents advocate agricultural use, tourism development, and land use types based on indigenous culture, like ethnic botanical gardens that can provide opportunities for daily edible plant collection and possible tourism sightseeing spots [40]. According to the land ethics of the indigenous people, they have generally agreed that land use should take environmental perspectives into consideration. The point, however, is that local indigenous communities should have autonomy in deciding how to balance livelihoods, cultural revitalization, and conservation perspectives.

In addition to villages whose populations are mainly indigenous, multiple communities near the DFA mostly comprise Han people, including descendants of past sugar industry workers and a small number of new residents who moved here from urban West Taiwan. These Han-dominant communities have no special claim on land rights issues, and they also respect the status quo of national land ownership and forest park policy. Their main expectation is that given the economic and social issues prevailing in rural areas, the forest park may bring more economic and employment opportunities to local communities through deliberate planning and improved management. Most local Han people have consciously avoided talking about indigenous peoples' land rights. They are, in private, generally not sympathetic to indigenous claims, but they are reluctant to publicly express their true thoughts for political reasons. Some people in these communities, especially new residents -who pursued a better natural environment and the younger generation of residents with urban work experience, express strong environment-friendly values. This group of people therefore emphasizes the ecological conservation function of the forest park and is happy to see the park play a larger role in conservation. They also generally look forward to the development of conservation-based economic activities such as ecotourism.

#### *4.3. Development of Governance Network after 2011*

On May 21, 2011, the forest park officially opened. Then-President Ma Ying-Jeou presided over the opening ceremony. A number of indigenous people protested fiercely during the ceremony and made the political claim "Return Our Land." This was the first time that the DFA case had attracted national attention. This protest, as well as the political and social changes in Taiwan behind the incident, including the indigenous movement, had a profound impact on the governance of the DFA. Many indigenous people began to challenge the existing land tenure arrangement and governance regime. However, the reality is that with these seemingly insurmountable structural barriers, real progress after the protest was sluggish. The Forestry Bureau did attempt to start a dialogue with indigenous communities after the protest, with the motivation of reducing tension. However, due to their enormous differences in views and because of long-accumulated conflicts and mistrust, the dialogue between the two parties ended again in conflict.

Research by the NDHU Team highlighted the characteristics of the governance regime of the DFA in the early 2010s. Overall, governance of the DFA was characterized as (1) nonparticipatory and nondeliberative; (2) monocentric, with a two-tier structure of dominant state and weak communities; (3) unjust, with upward accountability; and (4) loose governance networks [41]. The issue of injustice affects all local communities, but, undoubtedly, the most affected are indigenous communities. These characteristics can explain the serious defects of the governance regime at the time, including indigenous and local knowledge not being included in the governance process and a lack of consideration of social and cultural diversity. Another serious problem involves scale mismatch: the state-dominated governance regime views issues from a national perspective, whereas local communities view issues from their own perspective; DFA governance issues cannot be addressed at adequate governance levels based on the nature of the issues [41].

Even if the existing governance regime is far from ideal, the uninterrupted indigenous movement and changes in the Forestry Bureau have led to the possibility of gradual change. The indigenous movement has forced the Forestry Bureau to start considering indigenous people's views, at least in specific cases such as the DFA. Furthermore, influenced by international trends in conservation, the Forestry Bureau has begun to adopt measures that include more local views and encourage local involvement. For example, community forestry policy is a typical approach that has been widely applied since 2002 [42]. The same situation applied to the DFA after 2011. Specifically, with the DFA, changes were also prompted by action-oriented academic research initiatives. As described in the previous paragraph, the researchers identified flaws in the existing governance regime. The NDHU Team accordingly launched a series of action-oriented initiatives. The basic goal was to collaborate with all types of stakeholders and proactively pursue a better governance mode. This new mode should be superior to the previous governance regime for the following governance attributes: participation, deliberation, justice, accountability, diverse knowledge base, and scale match.

Throughout the 2010s, under the influence of various factors mentioned in the previous paragraph and with the involvement of diverse actors, DFA's governance network structure underwent significant changes. In this section, the interaction of actors and the subsequent development of the governance network are analyzed. Four stages of network development emerged.

#### 4.3.1. Governance Network in 2011

In 2011, a very loose network structure between the institutions and actors involved in governance existed. The Hualien Branch of the Forestry Bureau (HBFB) was in charge of the management of the forest park, and the TSC owned (and continues to own) the land and forest rights. Due to community forestry and other government-driven projects, Han-dominant community organizations began to emerge, operate, and interact with the HBFB. For the indigenous communities, only one actor who had been fighting for land rights for a long time participated, and he had a tense confrontation with the two government authorities, the HBFB and TSC. Most of the other tribe members refused to interact with the authorities. In addition, two research teams conducted research separately, without close coordination or cooperation. At that time, the researchers' work largely focused on natural science investigations, and governance issues were not examined, particularly the issue of land ownership. Academia did not interact with these indigenous peoples. Loose interaction relationships existed among the researchers, HBFB, TSC, and Han-dominant community organizations. Figure 2 presents the interaction of actors and the governance network during this period.

**Figure 2.** Governance network in 2011. Large dots represent major, active actors, and small dots represent actors with secondary significance. Lines between points represent interactive relationships.
