Country

Taiwan: 2 ecoregions. Each with its climate now and toward 2050, and its conservation tier.

Taiwan is moist broadleaf forest from coast to ridge. The Taiwan subtropical evergreen forests account for nearly all of the island, running from warm lowlands up steep mountains high enough to turn genuinely cool, while the small South Taiwan monsoon rain forests occupy the tropical far south around the Hengchun Peninsula. Abundant rain arrives with the monsoons and typhoon season, and the fierce elevation gradient compresses many climates into short horizontal distances. For growers that means the island supports everything from tropical fruit in the south to cool-mountain conifers and cloud-forest plants upslope; the practical variable is altitude, not latitude. Both ecoregions rate Nature Could Reach Half Protected, and the mountain forests remain the island's great botanical asset.