Authors：Chin-Shien Wu, Meng-Shan Wu, Yi-Honng Chen

Year：2014

Key words：traditional ecological knowledge, conservation, forest management, aboriginal people

     To the public, aboriginal peoples’ legitimacy for co-management of the land partly comes
from traditions passed down through history. In the past, traditional ecological knowledge
(TEK) was transmitted by oral history, fables, and ceremonies, instead of being written down
and documented.  The purpose of this study was to discover existing contents and influencing
factors of theoretical and practical TEK. Questionnaires were used to investigate the Paiwan
people who live in Jialan Village, Jinfeng Township, Taitung County. Results showed that
respondents had mediumgrade theoretical TEK. However, this cognitive ability was not
homogeneous across individuals.  Gender and other socioeconomic factors had a significant
influence on awareness of theoretical TEK. It was noteworthy that the respondents’ awareness
level of theoretical TEK increased with age. As for practical TEK, although the study area is
near forests, about 30% of the respondents used neither plants nor animals. According to the
use and collection frequencies, it is clear that these aborigines no longer wholly depend on
natural resources for their daily lives. Socioeconomic factors also rarely influenced
respondents’ practical TEK. Finally, we found a positive and statistically significant correlation
between the theoretical TEK of plants and the plants used in line with theoretical expectations.