This is a selected list of my recent and ongoing writing projects. I enjoy long-form, in-depth articles that allow me to spend time exploring and explaining an ecological concept while connecting the fragments into a true story with aspects that may seem periphery or unrelated, but come together to paint more penetrating, interesting picture. Nature is beautiful and confusing, elaborate and stark; above all, nature is relentless and present, and we are a part of it. I write with an aim to tell the beautiful confusing elaborate stark stories of Taiwan in a way that captivtes, and educates.
Along the way, through the months of field work and hours of conversations that come together to make a story happen (and the countless hours of editing and re-working!), I continue to meet people who dedicate their lives and work to their science, to selflessly building conservation programs, to educating the public and next generation ecologists, and volunteering their time to make the world better. Without their effort, work, and kindness in taking me under their wing, there is no way that I could write so profusely about crabs and turtles and butterflies.
It is my passion that pushes me to spend hours in a typhoon's rain helping land crabs spawn or walking a scorched beach for a missing turtle nest; it is their kindness and dedication that makes it a story.
For more information about these or other ongoing projects or to contact me about a writing job, please click the contact link.
Along the way, through the months of field work and hours of conversations that come together to make a story happen (and the countless hours of editing and re-working!), I continue to meet people who dedicate their lives and work to their science, to selflessly building conservation programs, to educating the public and next generation ecologists, and volunteering their time to make the world better. Without their effort, work, and kindness in taking me under their wing, there is no way that I could write so profusely about crabs and turtles and butterflies.
It is my passion that pushes me to spend hours in a typhoon's rain helping land crabs spawn or walking a scorched beach for a missing turtle nest; it is their kindness and dedication that makes it a story.
For more information about these or other ongoing projects or to contact me about a writing job, please click the contact link.
Taiwan's Land Crab Spawning Migration: The Road Too Travelled
China Geographic / 中國國家地理, November 2018 | This story explored the confrontation of nature and roads, set in the south of Taiwan. Particulary highway #26, a road that rings the perimiter of the Hengchun Peninsula. This four lane road dissects the terrestrial habitat and marine spawning grounds of numerous species of crab; to get from the forest to the ocean these crabs must cross a road packed with tourist traffic. On the three days after the full moons of July to October, egg-laden female crabs embark on a journey their ancestors have undertaken for centuries to get to the ocean to lay their eggs. But, unlike the centuries of the past, there is now this road in their way. Of particular concern is Banana Bay, a small coral-fringed nook surrounded by an uplifted coral forest and rare, and increasingly diminished, coastal forest. This bay has the worlds highest diversity of land crabs, and is unfortunately not just tucked into those coral and coastal forests, but also one of southern Taiwans most popular tourist destinations.
Roadkill is astoundingly high. Populations were plummeting. The road was killing the world's most diverse land crab habitat.
This is a story of one passionate land crab researcher and his quest to save this bay and its land crabs. Today a thriving conservation program built mostly of volunteers, and the national park and the local power company, works to limit traffic and help land crabs cross the road. I found out about this story almost by accident - I had lived near the bay for years but never knew about its biological wealth or the grassroots conservation program until one day I saw a sign on the side of the road and asked a single question. From that, this story unfolded...
Roadkill is astoundingly high. Populations were plummeting. The road was killing the world's most diverse land crab habitat.
This is a story of one passionate land crab researcher and his quest to save this bay and its land crabs. Today a thriving conservation program built mostly of volunteers, and the national park and the local power company, works to limit traffic and help land crabs cross the road. I found out about this story almost by accident - I had lived near the bay for years but never knew about its biological wealth or the grassroots conservation program until one day I saw a sign on the side of the road and asked a single question. From that, this story unfolded...
Taiwan's Sea Turtles: A Story of Three Islands
China Geographic / 中國國家地理, November 2019 | In the 1800s the elders of Wang'An island, a small and nearly flat basaltic islet of Taiwan's Penghu Archipelago, made a decision to protect their sea turtles. Etching a decree into a stone tablet, they wrote potentially the first species protection law made by the people, not the government. One of the most important nesting islands in all of Taiwan, Wang'An was at that moment - and still is today - protected from the ground up by the people who live there. However, it is not just the people and the nesting beaches of this island that control the future of the sea turtles.
Taiwan is home to five species of sea turtle, though the majority are green and hawksbill. Taiwan has made great advances in conservation, though admitedly there is a long way still to go. This is a story of tree islands - Wang'An, Xiao Liu-Qiu, and Orchid Island - each important to sea turtles for slightly different reasons. Wang'An, once a pinnacle of nesting sites in Taiwan is crashing, their populations being eliminated because of by-catch deaths of Chinese fishing fleets in international waters; Xiao Liu-Qiu is stable, but being potentialy overrun by tourism to see sea turtles; and Orchid Island is increasing in sea turtle nests and observations.
This is a story of how these islands connect, their individual struggles, and how they have flipped Taiwan's sea turtle population from west to east.
Taiwan is home to five species of sea turtle, though the majority are green and hawksbill. Taiwan has made great advances in conservation, though admitedly there is a long way still to go. This is a story of tree islands - Wang'An, Xiao Liu-Qiu, and Orchid Island - each important to sea turtles for slightly different reasons. Wang'An, once a pinnacle of nesting sites in Taiwan is crashing, their populations being eliminated because of by-catch deaths of Chinese fishing fleets in international waters; Xiao Liu-Qiu is stable, but being potentialy overrun by tourism to see sea turtles; and Orchid Island is increasing in sea turtle nests and observations.
This is a story of how these islands connect, their individual struggles, and how they have flipped Taiwan's sea turtle population from west to east.
Translations
For more than four years I was translator (Mandarin-English) for nature, science, and culture articles for China Scenic. Translating requires not only literal change of languages, but also a nuanced re-editing to make the story suit the language. As such, I was also tasked with re-working every story - while strictly adhering to the content and intent of the original - to make it more suitable for an English-reading audience. Stories included the Great Wall, food, banyans, snakes, birds, desert plants, ephemeral lakes and many more.