The NPUST Community Forestry Center is committed to the development of Satoyama “deep economies” and is working with the Forestry and Nature Conservation Agency (Ministry of Agriculture) to help further their cause. Recently, the pair jointly organized the “2023 Taiwan-Japan Satoyama Exchange Seminar” and invited six experts and scholars from Japan to come to Taiwan to collaborate on the Taiwan Satoyama Initiative together with Taiwanese community forestry scholars and experts, government agencies, and industry operators. With the flights of several Japanese scholars experiencing delay due to a passing typhoon, the physical seminar which was scheduled for 9:00 am on August 16 (‘23) was changed to an online broadcast (website: https://ppt.cc/fmmPXx). The opening ceremony, however, was held according to the original plans at the International Conference Hall on the 4th floor of the NPUST Library and Exhibition Hall, with NPUST Vice-President Shang-Min Ma and President Nakamura Nobuyuki of the Satoyama Exchange Conference co-hosting the event.

National Pingtung University of Science and Technology (NPUST) serves as the permanent secretariat of the University Network for Tropical Agriculture (UNTA), assisting the alliance schools in organizing annual membership meetings and facilitating exchanges and cooperation among global partners. This year’s (2023) UNTA annual assembly was held by the University of Brawijaya in Indonesia on August 8th/9th under the theme of “Innovation for sustainable agriculture production, ensuring climate-resilient and digital agriculture”. More than 250 people, including university presidents, vice-presidents, professors and students from 9 member schools in Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Taiwan took part in the assembly.

NPUST, the A-Kong-Tien Rotary Club, and the Fund for Children and Families (FCF) jointly hosted an education camp for students from disadvantaged rural communities in Southern Taiwan. From July 17th to 21st the “Jingsi Lake Scientist’s Exploration Camp” was held to promote Industry 4.0, robot applications in industry, IoT, Green energy science and more. Combined with care activities for disadvantaged communities, the five-day science camp was organized for high school (vocational) students registered at Family Support Centers in Kaohsiung, Pingtung, and Taitung counties. The opening ceremony was held at 9:00 am on July 18th at the NPUST Data Center. University president, Chin-Lung Chang, A-Kong-Tien Rotary Club director, Sophia Hsu and former director Cheng-Kai Huang, former director of Fund for Children and Families, Cheng-bin Chen, and Professor Hudson Hsu were joined by teachers and students from the university for the unveiling ceremony.

Every summer break, teachers and students from the NPUST Center for Teacher Education conduct Schweitzer Service-Learning activities designed to provide middle school students in rural areas of Pingtung County with an interesting summer learning experience. The theme of this year’s event was “Life×Nature: A Summer Camp Where Life Meets Nature”. Under the guidance of Karin Ya-Ling Wu of the Center for Teacher Education, 10 teachers and students put their respective strengths to practice, and used their personal knowledge in such areas as agriculture, forestry, animals and livestock, aquaculture, biotechnology, civil engineering, fashion design, food, child care and more to provide creative cross-domain learning activities for 60 students from Nanchow Junior High School and Jia Dong Junior High School in Pingtung County. Through diverse learning activities, the junior high school students were able to discover and explore their personal strengths and career interests. On July 13th, from 10:00 to 11:30 am, the results of the Schweitzer Service-Learning activities were presented at Jia Dong Junior High School.