Since its establishment, the Society of Wilderness (SOW) has gathered many people who devote themselves to environmental protection issues. Within SOW, there are three pillars supporting the organization: Members, Secretariat, and Volunteers. Each pillar plays its role, works with each other in every SOW action. In Chinese writing, combining three strengths will form the word which means “cooperate”. These three pillars cooperate to create synergy to support SOW in promoting sustainable environmental protection works.

Members are people who share the same values with SOW in regard to environmental issues. They use spare time to participate in SOW events to get close to nature. Some members even become volunteers, providing additional monetary contribution to support the conservation and preservation of the natural environment. The members have another meaning to SOW, the greater the number of members who share the same values and ideals, the more power and influence SOW will have. SOW is the largest environmental group in Taiwan with over 20,000 members.

Secretariat consists of full-time SOW staff workers, its main purpose is to provide support and service to members and volunteers, as well as assist organization’s operation and event promotion. In the process of getting to know SOW, we have discovered that prior to becoming full-time staff, many people started as volunteers and during the volunteering service, they have started to gain awareness and agree with SOW’s ideals and values. Because of their volunteer experience, they are able to have a more diverse perspective to cooperate with others to promote SOW values and ideals. Categorized by tasks and functions, Secretariat assigns personnel to head office, 11 branches, and various cooperative projects. The Secretariat General is the head of the office, who is appointed by the Chairperson.

Volunteers have always been the driving force for SOW. Although they may come from different places, they share the same ideals and values on environmental issues. Through their actions, they hope to learn how to coexist with the environment. They also hope to preserve the beauty of Taiwan’s landscape and ecosystems as sustainable resources future generations can inherit.

Volunteers seem to have magical powers that give them the ability to touch everyone’s heart and persuade more people to spend more time to experience, understand, and further protect the natural environment. With volunteers’ selfless dedication over the years, SOW has become the pioneer on many Taiwan’s environmental issues. Their firm belief and enthusiasm have brought people’s attention to environmental protection.

There are three kinds of volunteers in SOW: Professional Volunteers, Passionate Volunteers, and Administrative Volunteers.

• Professional Volunteers: Need to go through volunteer training programs such as lecturer training, beach cleanup guide training. The content of the training programs is more academic. Volunteers will get acquainted with various conservation / preservation techniques and become fully knowledgeable of internal operations, event process and missions and values of the Society of Wilderness.
• Passionate Volunteers: Volunteers who are personally involved in events and activities, and able to set off to the event site when needed. The event and activities include habitat projects, habitat maintenance, and beach cleanup, etc.
• Administrative Volunteers: Mainly to handle the support administrative affairs of SOW.

Furthermore, since its establishment 25 years ago, SOW has been involved in more and more environmental issues. The volunteers are divided into different work environments, and have established committees according to their needs, hoping to create an opportunity for the general public to join and be part of SOW. Currently SOW has 13 work committees that handle environmental issues on education, promotion, habitat works, etc. SOW hopes to take root in education and plant the seeds of environmental protection in everyone’s heart. From the heart of individuals to groups of people, growing and maturing the concept of environmental awareness, and hope that we can work together for Taiwan’s and the world’s ecological environment.