In recent years, Taiwan’s mountaineering and outdoor sports culture has flourished, especially in 2020 due to coVID-19 impact,
Close to the mountains and forests, walking trails, has become the most easy to adopt in the post-epidemic era of health and leisure activities,
Even two to five times more crowds than in the past, and trails are a lower-risk space for maintaining social distance than other indoor spaces.
As a result, “walking trails” are getting more attention. For an old mountain friend who has climbed from Taiwan to all kinds of mountains and forests around the world for more than two decades,
I’m going up the hill now with some kind of job and necessity. Even in such a tired condition,
Every time I go up the mountain, I seem to be able to find my original purpose: I like to find that lonely ritual environment, where I can feel really relaxed and gain strength.
Looking back on a hundred years: the inspiration that transcends time and space
A hundred years ago, in 1921, there was a dreamer, Benton MacKaye.
An initiative to create the Appalachian Trails (3400 km) was published in the Architects magazine.
In his idea, full of people to return to nature and mutual assistance and cooperative labor ideals, the former is to reconnect the relationship between man and nature, the latter is to reconnect the relationship between people.
Following the initiative of Benton McKay in 1921, the French Walking Association was established in 1947 to propose the idea of a GR system;
In 1968, the United States passed the National Trail System Act, which institutionalized the legal positioning of trails and public-private partnerships.
In the same year, the Pacific Ridge Trail was designated as the National Landscape Trail, and in 1979 the first long-distance hiking trail in Hong Kong, the Meliho Trail, was completed;
In 1993 and 2004, the Spanish pilgrimage route, which had attracted pilgrims and worshippers from all over the country since the Middle Ages,
And Japan Kusano Ancient Road two major East-West cultural paths, respectively, by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site;
The 2010 World Trail Congress was held in Jeju Island, South Korea, and the World Trail Alliance was formally established in 2012 and the Asian Trail Alliance was established in 2014;
In Taiwan, in the past ten years, there have been thousands of miles of trails around the island road network series, as well as Tanlan, Chang’s fine road, Shanhai Shenzhen three long-distance trails in series and construction.
Long trails, like many social reforms that follow the turmoil, summon the desire to connect hope and reconnect with concrete dreams.
Like the butterfly effect in general, to the dreamers everywhere on this route to shine, back to their hometown dream, so that the mountain trail mileage continues to stretch, in various places to develop a different look.
Take the long greenway to enrich your journey
In 2006, the Thousand Mile Trail Movement initiative round the island slow-walking, trail series, in 2010 in various communities, volunteers in cooperation, completed the mountain line, sea line, Tuen line 2,877 km of the ring island road network test walk and fixed line.
The minimum objective of this social movement is to provide space for pedestrians and bicycles to walk safely,
and the highest objective is to protect the beautiful scenery and cultural assets passing along the trail,
Through slow-moving tourism to promote the economy of the surrounding communities,
travelers themselves should implement unmarked mountain forests and carbon reduction, waste reduction, food zero mileage, walk the body to avoid overexploitation,
To remove the three harms of the countryside: light hazards, herbicides, New Jersey guardrails,
mountain trails to consider environmental ecology and human history, as far as possible in-place hand-made walkways, to promote the maintenance of ancient roads and dirt roads landscape aesthetics.
The choice of route, then focus on the shallow mountains not far from the settlement, encourage long-distance,
rather than climbing mountains, in order to disperse the crowd from the fragile mountains to rural communities, positive and mainstream social developmentist dialogue,
Bring a new development model that balances sightseeing and recreation with conservation and economy.
In 2016, we entered a new stage of movement of 2.0 and green trails,
and also responded to the development of greenways in line with international standards, and launched the initiative and construction of national greenways.
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Author: Xu Mingqian/Deputy Ceo of Taiwan’s Thousand Mile Trail Association
Assistant Professor, National Development Institute, National Taiwan University. Originally simply like to climb mountains,
until 2002 found that Taipei’s suburban mountains fully imported granite damage to the ecology,
It has opened up taiwan’s mountain trails and the natural environment of concern and protection actions so far. Promote the pathwalk volunteer,
trail science curriculum system and trail teacher training system.
So far, in cooperation with the Thousand Mile Walk Association and various public departments, more than 140 hand-made trails have been operated.
