Wild grass now grows around the abandoned wooden houses of Tengjhih, a high-mountain hamlet in southern Taiwan, once a key settlement of the Bunun Indigenous people. Now, little remains except for the memories it holds.
Around 150 Bunun Indigenous residents of Tengjhih were permanently resettled in lowland areas after the deadly Typhoon Morakot in 2009 destroyed the only access road to their village, contributor Aylin Ho reports for Mongabay.
Typhoon Morakot killed 755 people across Taiwan, triggering catastrophic floods and landslides. While Indigenous peoples represented just 2.1% of Taiwan’s population at the time, approximately 70% of the land declared unsafe by authorities was located within Indigenous territories.
Efforts to rebuild the road to Tengjhih in 2012, 2021 and 2023 faced setbacks due to climate change-amplified rainfall and landslides. More recently, a typhoon in 2025 also devastated one section of the mountain, Ho reports. The indefinite closure of the surrounding Tengjhih National Forest Recreation Area has wiped out the local ecotourism and agricultural economy.
“When a major typhoon hits us, I have no income for the entire year,” said Bi’ Ismahasan, 70, a tea and coffee farmer who now relies on government assistance. “In 2026, I lost my entire harvest. Every year is worse than the previous one.”
Displacement has severed connections to ancestral land, threatening the transmission of cultural practices and language to younger generations.
“Today, when [young people] come back, there is no village and no work,” said Saminat Maliklan, 55, a Bunun cultural guide and one of five residents remaining in Tengjhih. “They have to adapt to an unfamiliar environment, and their ties with elders gradually fade. Our rituals and ceremonies are disappearing.”
The Taiwanese government’s resettlement program has drawn sharp criticism. Under the program, displaced families received ownership of lowland apartments but not the land beneath them, preventing residents from selling, expanding, or rebuilding their homes, according to news reports.
Tunkan Tansikian, a Bunun Indigenous rights and policy scholar at National Dong Hwa University, highlighted that relocation occurred without prior consultation, violating Taiwan’s 2005 Indigenous Peoples Basic Law.
“The purpose of the resettlement program was to persuade residents to abandon their mountain villages, which were considered dangerous, to reduce safety risks,” Tunkan said. “For Indigenous peoples, however, land is a core part of their culture, rather than being treated as a tradable and easily relinquished commodity.”
While local officials at the Taoyuan District Office have ruled out permanent resettlement due to landslide risks, an alternative access road is scheduled to open in January 2027 thanks to years of campaigning by Dahu Ismahasan, president of the Bunun tribal council.
“We still have hope … One day, the road will be better, and the lives of the people here will be better too,” Dahu said.
Read the full story by Aylin Ho here.
Banner image: Abandoned houses in Tengjhih, a settlement of the Bunun Indigenous people, in Taiwan, on Aug. 6, 2026. Image by Aylin Ho for Mongabay.
