Indigenous Activist Battles To Save Home From Demolition

TaiwanPlus News

Indigenous activist Lin Shu-ling spent decades fighting a tourism development on land near her home on Taiwan's southeast coast. Now she's battling to save her own house from demolition by the county government.

Transcript

00:00Indigenous activist Lin Shuling is living on borrowed time

00:06and, according to authorities, on borrowed land.

00:10They say she built parts of her home on Taiwan's east coast

00:13illegally on public property

00:15and have already tried to demolish it once this week.

00:18But Lin, who is indigenous Amis,

00:21has no plans to move from where her family have lived for generations.

00:31It's been a years-long legal nightmare for Lin.

00:35A court recently ruled that these buildings do not fall

00:38under indigenous protection laws and must go.

00:41So far, she's kept the bulldozers at bay

00:44by gathering environmentalists and activists

00:46who say this is a matter of indigenous people's fundamental rights.

00:54Many of Taiwan's 600,000 indigenous people are from here.

00:58The coastlines and mountains of Taiwan's rural southeast.

01:02They've lived here for millennia,

01:04predating the now-majority Han Chinese.

01:07And although Taiwan law protects indigenous people's rights,

01:10many communities here say they face an uphill battle

01:14to preserve their languages, their ways of life and even their land.

01:18Lin's home lies in the shadow

01:20of one of Taiwan's biggest land rights cases.

01:23An illegally built 100-room hotel

01:26handed over to the government after Lin and other indigenous activists

01:30took developers to court.

01:32The county government now says her home is obstructing redevelopment plans.

01:36The government of Taitung said

01:39this would affect the entire tribe to use the seawater.

01:44Originally, there was a public road to get in and out.

01:48The tribe used the seawater to get in and out.

01:52This rugged coastline is home to unique shoreline habitats

01:56and centuries-old coral reefs,

01:58natural resources crucial to traditional indigenous ways of life.

02:02But far from Taiwan's urban centres,

02:05economic opportunities are few.

02:07Tourism development often takes precedence.

02:30Lin feels targeted for her activism

02:33and says she is determined to fight this case.

02:51For centuries, the Amis people have lived at one with this coastline,

02:55foraging in the forests, growing crops along the shore

02:58and fishing in the sea.

03:00For Lin, it's this connection that's at stake,

03:03the reason she's willing to stand up to authorities

03:06and live in uncertainty as she defends her home from demolition.

03:11Clive Wong and Rick Lowatt in Taitung County for Taiwan Plus.

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