This study explores the cost of extreme weather disasters to the tourism industry, taking the Taiwan Maolin National Scenic Area as an example. The paper evaluates the economic damage caused by typhoon Morakot. The author uses long-term tourist trend lines as the basis for calculating disaster losses and adopts an error correction model as a measurement method for the estimation. The study finds that the entire park lost over 700,000 visitors in the year and a half after the disaster, representing a loss of NT$1.39 billion in tourism business – a value three times the infrastructure loss. Any delays in reconstruction will increase the losses to the tourism industry. However, several tourist spots were gradually losing their attractiveness even before the disaster, and hastening to rebuild such sites is not conducive to the recovery of tourism. Rather, efforts should first be made to understand the reasons why these tourist spots were becoming less attractive and to gauge tourist demand for them before their reconstruction.

Background: Geographic Information Systems (GIS) combined with spatial analytical methods could be helpful in examining patterns of drug use. Little attention has been paid to geographic variation of cardiovascular prescription use in Taiwan. The main objective was to use local spatial association statistics to test whether or not the cardiovascular medication-prescribing pattern is homogenous across 352 townships in Taiwan.Methods: The statistical methods used were the global measures of Moran'sIand Local Indicators of Spatial Association (LISA). While Moran'sIprovides information on the overall spatial distribution of the data, LISA provides information on types of spatial association at the local level. LISA statistics can also be used to identify influential locations in spatial association analysis. The major classes of prescription cardiovascular drugs were taken from Taiwan's National Health Insurance Research Database (NHIRD), which has a coverage rate of over 97%. The dosage of each prescription was converted into defined daily doses to measure the consumption of each class of drugs. Data were analyzed with ArcGIS and GeoDa at the township level.Results: The LISA statistics showed an unusual use of cardiovascular medications in the southern townships with high local variation. Patterns of drug use also showed more low-low spatial clusters (cold spots) than high-high spatial clusters (hot spots), and those low-low associations were clustered in the rural areas.Conclusions: The cardiovascular drug prescribing patterns were heterogeneous across Taiwan. In particular, a clear pattern of north-south disparity exists. Such spatial clustering helps prioritize the target areas that require better education concerning drug use.

We show that tourism activities severely impact the ecology of Orchid Island, its natural resources, and the culture of the Tao tribe. For example, highway widening, in response to the increased traffic volumes caused by tourism, required many Pandanus trees to be cut and removed, which has placed the coconut crabs in danger of extinction. To promote eco-tourism, observation trips to observe Elegant Scops owls and Birdwing butterflies have taken place, which has affected the breeding of these two protected species. The Elegant Scops owls- and Birdwing butterflies-related tourism activities also break the “evil spirits” taboo of the Tao people and have caused the disappearance of the specifications for using traditional natural resources, causing natural ecosystems to face the threat of excessive use. In addition to promoting and advocating aboriginal tourism of the Tao people on Orchid Island, the Taiwanese government should help the Tao people to develop a management model that combines traditional regulations and tourism activities.

This study described the paradox created by the efforts of a conservation organization, which caused an emerging threat to the survival of an endangered species, as well as proposed recommendations to mitigate this paradox. In-depth interviews were conducted to investigate the problems encountered during the implementation of conservation practices by green sea turtle conservation workers (volunteers) in Lanyu, Taiwan. The staff believed that the implementation of the green sea turtle conservation measures violated the traditional cultural beliefs of the local residents (Tao/Yami ethnic group), which caused resentment by the residents towards the organization. Consequently, the residents did not cooperate with the organization and even discouraged conservation activities. In addition, green sea turtle ecotourism promoted by the conservation organization in recent years violated local customs of not having contact with green sea turtles or entering their habitats.