![\"Endangered](\"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/static\/planet4-international-stateless\/2025\/07\/1a57ee73-gp0su5fbo.jpg\" "\\"Endangered")
Once a common sight in Taiwan’s mountain villages, the Russet Sparrow now teeters on the brink of extinction, its numbers plummeting to a staggering low of under a thousand in the last two decades. Despite a slight recent recovery, the total population likely remains below 2,000, facing imminent disappearance from Taiwan’s lands. A combination of issues is converging, placing the sparrow at risk of endangerment.<\/p>\n\n
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- Rapid Loss of Habitat:<\/strong> Relentless deforestation and land development are steadily depriving the natural tree cavities where Russet Sparrows build their nests. These cavity-nesting birds are struggling to reproduce due to homelessness.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- The Impact of Climate Change:<\/strong> Taiwan\u2019s millet fields, once essential for the Russet Sparrow, are now at risk due to rising temperatures and extreme weather, leading to the loss of farmlands and a decline in the birds\u2019 food sources.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- The Harmful Effects of Pesticide:<\/strong> As Russet Sparrows forage in agricultural areas, they face growing exposure to harmful herbicides and pesticides, which directly threaten their survival and disrupt their food sources.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- The Decline of Millet Farming:<\/strong> Greenpeace\u2019s data shows a troubling link between the sharp decrease in millet fields in Pingtung County and the rapid drop in Russet Sparrow populations. The loss of these fields represents not just a loss of food crops, but also a blow to biodiversity and Indigenous cultural traditions.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n
The millet fields of Taiwan’s Indigenous communities used to be vibrant ecosystems, where diverse wildlife thrived in harmony. Today, such abundant scenes have become exceedingly rare treasures in Taiwan’s natural landscape.<\/p>\n\n
![\"Tribal](\"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/static\/planet4-international-stateless\/2025\/07\/ac88235d-gp0su5f89.jpg\" "\\"Tribal")
This workshop is part of the [Greenpeace – Indigenous Climate Action] project activities. Building on the planting workshop held in March, this session focuses on assisting with the harvest while engaging volunteers in discussions about millet biodiversity, the planting process, and millet reusability. Participants will gain a deeper understanding of the cultural significance of millet and its connection to environmental issues.\n\nDuring the event, we will also invite everyone to join the “Environmental Advocacy Action”, raising voices for both the tribal community and ecological preservation. We hope to urge government agencies to place greater emphasis on agricultural rights related to Indigenous peoples.<\/figcaption> \u00a9 Chase Huang \/ Greenpeace<\/div><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\nIn Pingtung County’s Wutai, Sandimen, and Majia Townships, once strongholds of millet farming, production has plummeted by a staggering 93% in just over a decade, while farmland has shrunk by an equally devastating 94%. Adding to this tragedy, Indigenous farmers who recognize the gravity of the situation and are dedicated to reviving millet and protecting the land and its dependent wildlife often find themselves unable to access vital government payment of ecosystem services (PES). The current payment for ecosystem services payment scheme overlooks the crucial role of millet cultivation in maintaining biodiversity. This policy oversight fails to support these important ecosystem stewards and hinders the protection of biodiversity. <\/p>\n\n
Small step for Project Successes, Continued Advocacy for Millet Farmers and Ecosystems<\/h2>\n\n
On Taiwan’s 2024 Indigenous Peoples Day, the dedicated volunteer team of Greenpeace’s Community Outreach Campaign (COC) joined hands with Indigenous community partners to deliver a heartfelt petition and handcrafted millet artwork to the government. Deputy Director-General Lin Haozhen of the Forestry and Nature Conservation Agency accepted this urgent plea from the grassroots, promising to consider Greenpeace’s policy recommendations and initiate active discussions and studies with relevant government agencies.<\/p>\n\n
![\"Endangered](\"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/static\/planet4-international-stateless\/2025\/07\/75a148bc-gp0su5fbr.jpg\" "\\"Endangered")
After a year of interviews, research, and volunteer workshops, the Taipei office enabled volunteers to take part in millet cultivation with Indigenous communities in Pingtung. Through learning and applying traditional ecological knowledge, the project aims to restore millet farming and help protect the endangered tree sparrow from disappearing due to the climate crisis. It also successfully advocated for the Pingtung County Government to join the effort in bringing the tree sparrow back to the region. \u00a9 Greenpeace \/ Chase Huang<\/div><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\nGreenpeace firmly believes that saving millet is synonymous with saving Taiwan’s biodiversity and protecting the very foundation of Indigenous cultures. We urgently call upon the Taiwanese government to:<\/p>\n\n
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- Integrate Indigenous traditional millet cultivation into national agricultural curricula<\/strong>, fostering the next generation of skilled farmers and ensuring the transmission of invaluable ancestral knowledge and techniques.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Broaden the scope of PES<\/strong>, fully including Indigenous millet cultivation as an eligible practice, recognizing the vital contributions of these farmers in protecting the Russet Sparrow and its habitat, and incentivizing widespread adoption of environmentally friendly farming methods.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n
Each grain of millet carries the wisdom of generations; each millet field is a precious ecological oasis. Now is the time for decisive and impactful action. We must stand in solidarity with the Indigenous farmers on the frontlines of environmental protection in Taiwan, rescuing the endangered Russet Sparrow <\/strong>and safeguarding our shared home. This is not just about specific species or cultures; it is about ourselves, about the vibrant web of life that sustains Taiwan.<\/p>\n\n
Cheril Chiang is a community outreach campaigner, Bill Chou is a content writer, Claudia Lim Nian Earn is an intern, and Coco Wu is a researcher – they are with Greenpeace East Asia, Taiwan<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The intertwined fate of these species underscores a deeper truth: supporting Indigenous knowledge and ways of life is not only a matter of cultural preservation, but also a crucial step in safeguarding Taiwan\u2019s biodiversity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":192,"featured_media":76814,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_planet4_optimize_post_is_variant":false,"_planet4_optimize_experiment_name":"","_planet4_optimize_variant_name":"","ep_exclude_from_search":false,"p4_og_title":"","p4_og_description":"","p4_og_image":"","p4_og_image_id":"","p4_seo_canonical_url":"","p4_campaign_name":"Local Campaign","p4_local_project":"","p4_basket_name":"","p4_department":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[70],"tags":[86,89],"p4-page-type":[59],"class_list":["post-76810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nature","tag-food","tag-climate","p4-page-type-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/192"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76810"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76810\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76825,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76810\/revisions\/76825"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76810"},{"taxonomy":"p4-page-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/p4-page-type?post=76810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
- Broaden the scope of PES<\/strong>, fully including Indigenous millet cultivation as an eligible practice, recognizing the vital contributions of these farmers in protecting the Russet Sparrow and its habitat, and incentivizing widespread adoption of environmentally friendly farming methods.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n
- The Impact of Climate Change:<\/strong> Taiwan\u2019s millet fields, once essential for the Russet Sparrow, are now at risk due to rising temperatures and extreme weather, leading to the loss of farmlands and a decline in the birds\u2019 food sources.<\/li>\n\n\n\n