「建設新臺灣」：黃維炎與戰後臺灣的林業接收

“Building a New Taiwan”: Huang Weiyan and Takeover of Forestry in Postwar Taiwan

森林為臺灣最顯著的地景，林業在臺灣史上的重要性不言而喻。然而，目前研究多集中在日治時期的林業體制，少有研究觸及戰後初期行政長官公署林務局對該體制的接收與重整，遑論以此為例，與全球環境史中廣受討論的治理性、拼裝、科技之傳播等議題，展開對話。本文以一手打造林務局且主導林業接收的慕尼黑大學林學博士、廣州中山大學教授黃維炎（1904-1988）為中心，探討其林業思想與實作，從而填補此研究史的空白。本文指出，於1930年代中期負笈德國的黃維炎，親炙當時林業界擁抱納粹自然保護政策的風潮。返國後，他又結合孫中山的林業思想、主掌農林部實驗林場的經驗、戰後中國之重建與復興等現實需要，提出「國防林業」的概念。黃維炎認為，理想的林業體制應徹底一元化與中央集權；如同軍事體系一般，中央林業機關為「大本營」，基層林業機關則宛若「前哨部隊」。1945年12月，當黃維炎著手接收殖民林業遺產時，他發現殖民林業係依著所謂「南方林業」而開展，且該體系與其國防林業恰巧位於光譜兩端。原來，1930年代，殖民林業學者與官員認為，臺灣林業有其特殊性，以溫帶之單純林為對象的「北方林業」無法直接套用。於是，他們逐步調整過去以德國林業馬首是瞻的作法，改以美國林學界之清理（liquidation）概念為核心，配合日本帝國的戰時需要，打造以會社為中心、扁平且去中心化的南方林業。為了調和此兩類林業的衝突，黃維炎做了一系列大膽的實驗，希望能將國防林業嫁接在南方林業之上。1946年10月，陳儀拍板定案行政長官公署農林處林務局的組織架構，確定該局之於臺灣森林資源的獨占。即便如此，該局仍是臺拼裝車；且其車體的龐大臃腫，不僅造成維修與駕駛的困難，且為後續臺灣林業的失序與傾頹，埋下伏筆。

Forest is the most significant landscape of Taiwan, and forestry is surely an important component of Taiwanese history. However, researchers have so far concentrated on the forestry regime in Taiwan under the Japanese colonial rule, and little attention has been paid to unveil how the Forestry Bureau of Taiwan Province took over and reorganized the colonial forestry regime in postwar Taiwan, let alone analyze this episode with concepts in recent scholarship of environmental history, such as governance, assemblage, and the circulation of knowledge. To bridge this gap, this essay focuses on the life and career of the first director of the Forestry Bureau, Huang Weiyan (1904-1988), who received his PhD in forestry from the University of Munich and upon graduation was appointed as Professor in forestry at the Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou. In the 1930s, when Huang studied in Germany, he became familiar with the Naturschutz (natural protection) ideology promoted by the Nazi Party and embraced by German foresters. After returning to China, he proposed the framework of“defense forestry,”which integrated German forestry, Sun Yat-sen’s forestry thought, his experience in the experimental forests of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, and the urgent needs for the reconstruction and revival of postwar China. Huang believed that an ideal forestry regime should be monolithic and centralized. Central forestry institution should serve as the“general headquarters”as in the military system, while lower level forestry institutions were akin to“outposts”on the front. However, in December 1945, when Huang took the responsibility of reorganizing Taiwan’s colonial forestry to set up a new regime under the supervision of the Forestry Bureau, he realized that his“defense forestry”and the“southern forestry”that buttressed Taiwan’s colonial forestry were on the opposite ends of the spectrum. Unlike Huang, colonial foresters in the 1930s had realized that, due to the unique compositions and complexities of Taiwan’s forests, it was impossible and impractical to import the“northern forestry,”which concentrated on temperate forests with relatively simple structures, and relied it as a guiding principle. Thus, they shifted the focus away from German forestry and created a company-oriented, horizontal, and decentralized“southern forestry,”which highlighted the“liquidation”concept of American forestry and the wartime needs of Japan. To reconcile the incommensurability between the two types of forestry, Huang conducted a series of bold experiments, in the hope of grafting his defense forestry upon southern forestry. Even so, in October 1946, when garrison commander Chen Yi approved the institutional structure of the Forestry Bureau, as well as the Bureau’s monopoly of Taiwan’s forest resources, the Bureau remained a cumbersome assemblage difficult to maintain. Those who were unsatisfied with the Bureau’s policies, for example, local governments and Taiwanese forestry managers, were aware of the Bureau’s maintenance problem. They exploited the opportunity, thus foreshadowing the chaos of Taiwanese forestry after the February 28th incident in 1947.