Page 60 - 2021 Annual Report Council of Agriculture Executive Yuan

equipment, teat scrubbers, and automated loaders. In addition, the COA has been promoting the integration of separate herd rearing, diet control during the transition period, and remote monitoring and management technology, in order to effectively strengthen lactation production capacity and improve the quality of raw milk. These measures can ensure the sustainability of the dairy industry.
◎ The COA guided dairy farmers to introduce automated and intelligent labor-saving equipment.
4、Sustainable Forestry Development
(1) Plantation and afforestation
In order to promote sustainable forestry
operations, the COA's Forestry Bureau has set separate operational objectives for economic forest and conservation forest to protect important ecosystems and their service value. The Bureau continued to stay up-to-date on changes in forest resources, promoted an increase in the land area covered by forest, strengthened operational management of forests as carbon sinks, and enhanced tasks related to use of domestic timber. It completed afforestation on 1,101.04 hectares (ha), thinned 333.25 ha, and produced 48,000 cubic meters of timber.
In order to stimulate the development of the domestic bamboo materials industry, the COA laid out a cross-ministerial "Outline Program for Development of the Emerging Bamboo Industry," which was approved by the Executive Yuan on October 4, 2021. The program, for which implementation will begin in 2022, will
link together the production side, the processing side, the industry side, the technology side, and the regulatory side to nurture development of the bamboo industry.
To enhance identification of legal domestic timber and suppress illegal logging, the COA's Forestry Bureau has utilized block chain technology to set up the "Taiwan Forest Products Production Traceability System," which has thus far certified 109 businesses, 1,090 products, and about 40,000 cubic meters of domestic timber.
The COA's Taiwan Forestry Research Institute is implementing the "demonstration project of forest diversified development model" to promote three research projects: long-term development strategies for tree growth and landscapes, management of forest health, and innovations and applications by forest owners and community industries.
(2) Protection of forest
The work of protecting forest includes
three main tasks: preventing illegal logging; investigating and interdicting illegal cultivation (occupation) of land; and preparation for, prevention and mitigation of, and responses to, forest fires. There are 1,040 forest rangers who conduct forest patrols and protection. Moreover, using modern technology, stronger inter-agency cooperation, and amendment of the "Forestry Act," the COA has built systems for production- and-marketing traceability certifications and QR Code production traceability management for legal sourcing of domestic timber in order to prevent illegal logging, with the rate of people being caught with illegal goods being 56.63%. In terms of forest fires, the COA has introduced various capabilities including upgraded disaster prevention equipment, periodic exercises, use of new science and technology, and an optimized response system, to minimize losses of forest resources. Moreover, we have combined social resources including 82 communities located near national forest, five college and university hiking clubs, and 249 volunteer forest rangers to collectively protect and patrol forests; in 2021 there were 15,500 patrols and reports were filed on 383 cases of illegal activities.
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