Inclination Analyses of Private Forest Owners Towards Public Land Restoration Strategy and Action Plan—A Case Study in Nan-Tou County

Abstract
The frequent mud flow disasters in recent years have reflected the overloading message of national land, the government is aware of the fact that Taiwan’s land has been overdeveloped, and the restoration of national land is an urgent task for the moment. Executive Yuan has past “National Land Restoration Strategy and Action Plan Draft” and “National Land Regulation Draft” on January 19, 2005. The main purposes of the above-mentioned drafts are to actively restore and control overdeveloped mountainous areas, improve sustainable development of environmental resources and high mountain, mitigate natural disasters and ensure the safety of aboriginal people.
The success of the government’s national land restoration policy lies on the effective execution of the governments at different levels, and the support and cooperation by the people. The main objectives of this project are to explore the response and inclination of the private forest owners towards the government’s national land restoration strategy and action plan draft, and dig out the regulations which will be easily accepted and cooperated by private forest owners, in order to resolve the problems of declining intention for reforestation by private forest owners and over-development and utilization in privately managed forests.
The results of this study indicate that the “Special Protection of Aboriginal Rights” group for the professional private and non-professional private forest owners towards “National Land Restoration Strategy and Action Plan”, have past the test of reliability and validity. In addition, the assenters towards related problems of aboriginal rights and interests exceed sixty percent, which implies that the survival and development of aboriginal people and promotion of ecotourism enterprise in high altitude mountainous areas have received due attention and concern. On the contrary, for the two regulations of “The roads in the mountainside which are not legal, except the roads are specially approved by the Executive Yuan, should not be built or broadened again. The existing non-planned roads once damaged, except aboriginal tribe’s roads and major outlet road, or sole outlet road of over 30-household community and roads of farmland re-planning area, should not be subsidized for repairing”, and “The central government can compulsory purchase private land and legal land ameliorant in high altitude and medium altitude mountainous areas if needed”, related to private landlords’ living, to which the assenters comprise less than fifty percent of responders, and objectors comprise nearly forty percent of responders. Under this situation, it is going to emerge significant barrier if government enforces the law in the future, and government should think about this beforehand. For the “National Land Restoration Strategy”, although most people knew it, there are one third people never heard about it yet. Therefore, the propaganda tasks towards government’s policy still remain much to be desired.