The Ali Aboriginal community, located in the most remote part of Wutai Township in the southern part of the Central Mountain Range, is a tranquil place removed from the world.(right) Rukai culture and history are very important to Lavuras Abaliwsu, the sixth-generation chief of Ali, who is now a teacher. His is one of the 10 households who have chosen to stay in their mountain hometown. (courtesy of Gu Xiuhui)

Located at the southernmost tip of the Central Mountain Range is the ancient Rukai settlement of Ali, the most remote in Wutai Township. In recent years efforts to promote eco-tourism have won a lot of attention from foreign backpackers and from bird and butterfly watchers. Although Typhoon Morakot left one-half of Ali's land-what locals call the "lower settlement"-uninhabitable, the "upper settlement" remains relatively safe, and of the original 32 households, 10 have decided to remain here, undaunted by landslides or inconveniences like washed-out roads. They are continuing to do business here, offering eco-tourism that plays on the area's low level of development, abundance of plant and animal life, and tribal life and culture.

Will this "small is beautiful" approach to eco-tourism in the wake of a large and devastating disaster prove to be a model for sustainable development for indigenous peoples who have decided to stick it out in their old homes? The experience thus far at Ali offers a certain amount of hope.

When it takes this much effort to get to a place, it had better be impressive! This one was worth the walk.

In order to get a good look at Ali, in early July this reporter asked the husband-and-wife team of Bao Taide and Gu Xiuhui-core figures in eco-tourism in Ali who at that time were down in the lowlands in a veterans' home in Pingtung for the duration of the typhoon season-to guide her up the mountains. We followed Provincial Highway 24 west, and after passing through Sandimen entered Wutai Township. Thereafter, it was a slow-motion roller-coaster ride all the way. After rattling and bouncing up and down steep grades for more than an hour and a half as we passed through Yila, Shenshan, and Wutai, we finally arrived at Jilu. There a landslide blocked the road going forward, still six kilometers from Ali, which took another 1.5-hour hike to reach.

Winding through the emerald mountains, as we walked along the totally deserted highway, there was a sense of taking a solitary stroll through the vastness of the world. Along the way we passed several places where there had been landslides, with rocks large and small still "suspended" on the steeply sloping mountain face; we hurried past these at a trot. There were also one or two places where the collapse has been so complete that there was nothing left to fall, and we walked past these with calm and even steps. Along the whole route Bao Taide, with all our provisions on his back, walked without saying a word, living up to the reputation of Rukai men as silent types who keep their thoughts to themselves. His wife Gu Xiuhui, a Hakka, strolled casually carrying only a camera, and she would kneel to capture any attractive flowers or insects with her lens.