Over a decade has passed since I began to get involved in the research of the ecology of Black-faced Spoonbills in 1998. From setting up the first conservation group named after the Spoonbill with some friends in Cigu, Tainan County to promoting the establishment of Taijiang National Park, I feel deeply grateful for the friendship with my colleagues and a fruitful career along the years.

Up until 2006 I had been staying in Tainan the whole time, conducting ecological surveys and conservation works of Black-faced Spoonbills with local fishermen and several NGOs. We once rescued a spoonbill from drowning and informed the researcher who had attached a ring to the bird's leg of the poor missing fowl, saving the worried scholar from being blamed for his negligence with protected animals.

Black-faced Spoonbills are precious because they are an endangered bird species. According to the 2010 avian census, the worldwide total population of the Spoonbills is only 2,341, among which 1,280 appear in Taiwan. From 1990 to 2010, some 50 to 60% of the world's Black-faced Spoonbills inhabit in Taiwan, indicating that the island has been the most important destination of the winter migration of the Bird.

Such importance has, therefore, made the education on the ecological conservation of the Spoonbills a crucial task for Taiwan.

It's, however, not an easy job to provide well-rounded interpretation and education on the ecology of the Spoonbills, which live in a wide range of over 22,000 hectares in Cigu. It takes years to train an experienced interpreter who is knowledgeable about everything in the area including the climate, sandbanks, hydrology, lagoons, wetlands, mangroves, coastal plants, crabs, fishes, waterfowls, invertebrates, zooplankton, etc., things that must be explained with care and accuracy to younger audience, in particular.

Also important is the education about the safety of visitors to Cigu, where many peppy Ocypode ceratophthalma, Kentish Plovers (Charadrius alexandrinus), Soldier Crabs and seashells would attract adults and children to some individual shallow sand banks farther away from the shore, and put them in danger of being swept away by the tidal waves. Besides, when sitting in a raft, one must put on a life jacket, keep seated in balance, and follow every safety instruction to avoid danger.

Another key to a better protection to the Spoonbills is keeping quiet, which may help reduce the disturbance to the Bird. This is also part of the environmental ethics that holds true in every situation in Nature, where humans should show respect to other life forms by keeping noise down and wearing less flashy clothes whose colors go with the environment.

Visitors should also be educated to restrain the intensity and speed of their movements when in a natural reserve. Faster and more intense movements, such as kids running around, would lead to louder noise and more severe disturbance to the wildlife. In other countries, it is common to find visitors keeping quiet and nimble in the wild. That's something we'll be able to do too in Taiwan through education, which may take various forms such as prize games, reports, presentations, Internet postings and discussions.

I had been received great assistance from quite many local residents and fishermen during the years of my conservation work of the Spoonbills. Species conservation, in fact, is not necessarily in conflict with economic development or people's livelihood. Due respect and trust from the administrative agencies would earn locals' support and goodwill in return in promoting ecological conservation.

In Taiwan, long-term research on one single species is such a difficult undertaking that it requires enthusiasm from the researchers, support and funding from the governments, and most of all, education and training of conservation professionals. Only by solid environmental education will all life forms be truly respected and cherished.

Liang-li Liu

Dr. Liu is the first conservationist and researcher in the world that chose Black-faced Spoonbill (Platalea minor) as the topic of his Ph.D. dissertation. He and his friends formed the first conservation group that used Black-faced Spoonbill as part of its name, and the group has trained hundreds of students and community conservation volunteers. Liu is currently teaching in the Department of Tourism and Hospitality, Kainan University, and has been a volunteer in Taiwan's high-mountain national parks for 25 years. He has been enthusiastically promoting the environmental education of wild animals and the development of ecotourism in recent years.

• upper: Black-faced Spoonbill (Platalea minor) in Taijiang National Park. /by Kuang-ying Huang