A brand new ”National Ecological Movie Festival” launched on 8th December to promote the new agricultural movement and bio diversity of Taiwan. The Council of Agriculture, Executive Yuan thinks highly of this land that we live on in a cultural and artistic way. In the year-end atmosphere, COA expect people to be concerned with Taiwan’s ecological environment. The Festival will start from 8th to 22nd December and 40 ecological documentary films will be played in Taipei, Kaohsiung, Hsinchu, Taichung, Yilan and Hualien, and carried out in a grand manner in 8 Forest District Offices of the Forestry Bureau, Taiwan Forestry Research Institute and the Endemic Species Research Institute. We sincerely invite the national to observe the beauty of Taiwan and find out the biodiversity of Taiwan through these recorded images.

The Council of Agriculture said that the 40 films which will show in this Festival are chosen from some classical documentary films taking Taiwan ecology as the main subject. They not only regard the artistic process of photographic skill as important, but also give great consideration to the theme. On the one hand, they expect that more people will understand the ecology and have a deeper enlightenment of the future ecological education, on the other hand they hope to summon more amateurs of the ecology and record their love to Taiwan all together.

The Council of Agriculture pointed out that the subheading of this Festival is “Showing Taiwan by Images in a Truly Way” which present the double meaning of the National Ecological Movie Festival: by the literal meaning, which show Taiwan by images and let people who lives on it know the ecology of Taiwan; by another signification, reciting this subtitle “Showing Taiwan by Images in a Truly Way” in Taiwanese will be the “truly cherish Taiwan” expression and the moving action of loving Taiwan.

The movies will be showed in an indoor way. For giving the public different experience, there will be specially two outdoor screens on the plaza of Taipei Zhonshan Hall and the Kaohsiung Municipal Film Archive, and some lively performances will be held, too. In addition, in order to make a chance for intercommunication of folk voices, let the government hand down the policy extensively to the public and make it as a multilateral conversation, a series of symposia on the ecological subjects held in Taipei intends to build a conversation platform for the discussion of public on ecological issues and for encouraging people to think deeply about the perennial exist of natural resources. The topics of these symposia include the ecotourism, ecological photography, LOHAS living conception, nature writing, the shooting of the ecological documentary films, etc. Ecological experts will be invited to share their experience with the public.

The outdoors shows of the Festival are open and the indoors shows are also cost-free. Please ask for the ticket or book the seat in advance. Contact telephone number of the Festival: (02) 23369926. For more related information, please refer to the website of the Forestry Bureau, Council of Agriculture（ http://www.forest.gov.tw）. There will be an ecological treasure hunting game on the website, any participant will have chance to obtain many exquisite gifts.

The Council of Agriculture finally indicated that in the future they will to give more budgets to the outstanding image recorders for reporting the Taiwan ecology. The Council of Agriculture has decided to set the rules for the plan of subsidy of ecology documentary film photography start from next year. They will appropriate a sum of money for this plan to the organization or personal applicant. By holding this event, the Council hopes to let more people know that there is a group of people who is making efforts on recording the ecological images of Taiwan, and then turn their understanding to support of the ecological documentary film photography.