Page 62 - Hualien Sustainable Living Bilingual Magazine

Through her many undertakings, Dongi has maintained her desire to do her part for indigenous peoples. She is now the principal of the Indigenous People’s Wild Vegetable School, where she applies her knowledge of wild vegetables to promote food and agriculture education. She believes that the importance of growing and restoring wild vegetables lies in the fact that wild vegetables will lose their habitats as humans encroach on their environments. With environmental damage and changes in food culture, the restoration of wild vegetables has become an urgent task. She also noted that the way indigenous people classify plants is very different from the taxonomy used by western scholars.“For example, sama’(Indian lettuce) is classified by whether it has two or three leaves, which is also a method that is the most instinctual and closest to the land.” 57