Written by Mei-Hui Chen. Image credit: Visitors playing with leaf boats in the Laonong stream – a traditional childhood game of the Luigui locals. Photo courtesy of the author. What is an Ecotourism Destination Marketing Organisation (DMO)? Satoyama-satoumi landscapes and seascapes are ideal destinations for community-based ecotourism. For the past 20 years, Taiwan has been actively promoting ecotourism in rural areas. It aims to support biodiversity conservation, preserve cultural heritage, and promote sustainable local livelihoods. Over time, however, it has become clear that the diversity of tours and products, as well as the marketing capacity of a single community, is rather limited. This has affected the overall progress of community-based ecotourism development in the country. To address this challenge, the ecotourism trend has been gradually shifting from individual communities to the promotion of regional partnership networks in recent years. This innovative shift raises an important question: how can stakeholders —including communities, government agencies, and tourism professionals—effectively coordinate to link ecotourism destinations, facilitate exchanges across itineraries, products, services, talents, space, and expertise, and jointly build a community-based ecotourism industry? This is when ecotourism DMOs (Destination Marketing Organisations) can be a good solution. DMO s serve as a mechanism that engages government agencies, local stakeholders, and tourism professionals to collaborate on achieving a shared vision for tourism development. It integrates natural, human, administrative, financial, and other types of available resources to support a long-term goal of sustainable local development. DMOs need to coordinate across multiple stakeholders and have the ability to interpret data and manage knowledge to play a strategic role in the fiercely competitive tourism market. In general, DMOs are ‘integrated leaders’ of tourism destinations and need to work at multiple levels, including strategy, governance, branding, marketing, and sustainability, to achieve overall development of regional ecotourism. Since the introduction of the Community Forestry project in 2002, our team from the National Pingtung University of Science and Technology has been supporting satoyama and satoumi communities in southern Taiwan and nationwide in the development of their community-based ecotourism DMOs. The story of the Shih-ba-luo-han-shan Forest Reserve and its community efforts is one of the brightest examples of Taiwan’s regional DMOs to date. Community Participation in the Management of the Shih–ba–luo–han-shan Forest Reserve The Shih-ba-luo-han-shan mountain range is located in Luigui District, Kaohsiung City, southern Taiwan. It consists of several kilometres of independent peaks with unique shapes, forming many U-shaped valleys, canyons, peaks, meanders, and dry valleys. The Forestry and Nature Conservation Agency (FANCA), Ministry of Agriculture, established the Shih-ba-luo-han-shan Forest Reserve in 1992 to protect this unique geo-ecological landscape. This beautiful mountain range had always had an important collective memory in the eyes of the locals. However, after the establishment of the nature reserve, the local people lost access to it, which led to opposition and conflict with the management authority.
匯聚全臺里山里海保育共生的力量
位於屏東恆春半島的社頂部落，1984年被劃入墾丁國家公園，國家公園的保 護利用管制原則，直接衝擊在地居民傳統的狩獵採集。早期部落居民與政府機關 關係緊張，但在墾丁國家公園管理處輔導下，社頂部落卻成為南臺灣第一個成功 推動生態旅遊、實踐「社區林業」（Community Forestry）理念的社區。
Written by Mei-Hui Chen. Image credit: Visitors playing with leaf boats in the Laonong stream – a traditional childhood game of the Luigui locals. Photo courtesy of the author. What is an Ecotourism Destination Marketing Organisation (DMO)? Satoyama-satoumi landscapes and seascapes are ideal destinations for community-based ecotourism. For the past 20 years, Taiwan has been actively promoting ecotourism in rural areas. It aims to support biodiversity conservation, preserve cultural heritage, and promote sustainable local livelihoods. Over time, however, it has become clear that the diversity of tours and products, as well as the marketing capacity of a single community, is rather limited. This has affected the overall progress of community-based ecotourism development in the country. To address this challenge, the ecotourism trend has been gradually shifting from individual communities to the promotion of regional partnership networks in recent years. This innovative shift raises an important question: how can stakeholders —including communities, government agencies, and tourism professionals—effectively coordinate to link ecotourism destinations, facilitate exchanges across itineraries, products, services, talents, space, and expertise, and jointly build a community-based ecotourism industry? This is when ecotourism DMOs (Destination Marketing Organisations) can be a good solution. DMO s serve as a mechanism that engages government agencies, local stakeholders, and tourism professionals to collaborate on achieving a shared vision for tourism development. It integrates natural, human, administrative, financial, and other types of available resources to support a long-term goal of sustainable local development. DMOs need to coordinate across multiple stakeholders and have the ability to interpret data and manage knowledge to play a strategic role in the fiercely competitive tourism market. In general, DMOs are ‘integrated leaders’ of tourism destinations and need to work at multiple levels, including strategy, governance, branding, marketing, and sustainability, to achieve overall development of regional ecotourism. Since the introduction of the Community Forestry project in 2002, our team from the National Pingtung University of Science and Technology has been supporting satoyama and satoumi communities in southern Taiwan and nationwide in the development of their community-based ecotourism DMOs. The story of the Shih-ba-luo-han-shan Forest Reserve and its community efforts is one of the brightest examples of Taiwan’s regional DMOs to date. Community Participation in the Management of the Shih–ba–luo–han-shan Forest Reserve The Shih-ba-luo-han-shan mountain range is located in Luigui District, Kaohsiung City, southern Taiwan. It consists of several kilometres of independent peaks with unique shapes, forming many U-shaped valleys, canyons, peaks, meanders, and dry valleys. The Forestry and Nature Conservation Agency (FANCA), Ministry of Agriculture, established the Shih-ba-luo-han-shan Forest Reserve in 1992 to protect this unique geo-ecological landscape. This beautiful mountain range had always had an important collective memory in the eyes of the locals. However, after the establishment of the nature reserve, the local people lost access to it, which led to opposition and conflict with the management authority.
匯聚全臺里山里海保育共生的力量
位於屏東恆春半島的社頂部落，1984年被劃入墾丁國家公園，國家公園的保 護利用管制原則，直接衝擊在地居民傳統的狩獵採集。早期部落居民與政府機關 關係緊張，但在墾丁國家公園管理處輔導下，社頂部落卻成為南臺灣第一個成功 推動生態旅遊、實踐「社區林業」（Community Forestry）理念的社區。