摘要
關鍵詞：世界遺產潛力點、太魯閣國家公園
聯合國教科文組織於1972年通過《保護世界文化和自然遺產公約》後，目前已有191個締約國簽署，世界遺產總數達到1073處。文化部於2002年開始推動《台灣世界遺產潛力點》的評選工作，從最初的11處潛力點陸續增至2010年的18處。為配合世界遺產潛力點的推動工作，本計畫除整理前人對太魯閣國家公園地質、地形研究的文獻，做為世界遺產的價值論述外，另就太魯閣峽谷地形、地質和氣候的特性，對區內特有植物的分布格局、植群在海拔梯度上的多樣性變化及森林生態系在全球緯度帶上的特殊性，針對自然資源是否符合自然基準第ix, x項所提及的資格做論述，供太魯閣國家公園申請列名世界遺產的參考依據，並充實解說教育的素材。
ABSTRACT
Keywords: Potential World Heritage Site, Taroko National Park, Taiwan
Taiwan, as an island in East Asia, is unique in geography and vegetational diversity to the region and worldwide. Geographically, Taiwan spans the Tropic of Cancer. The climate differs from tropics in the south to subtropics in the north. Vegetationally, it's located at the interface of the eastern Asiatic and Malesian floristic regions. With plenty of endemic species making its owned floristic named as “Taiwan Province”. The vegetation in province ranges from tropical rainforest in the lowlands, through temperate and boreal forest in between, to alpine on the highest mountain tip Yushan at 3,952 m. Although Taiwan and the eastern China are both the distributional center of evergreen broad-leaved forest, which are very similar in vegetation types. However, a large number of endemic species create Taiwan's uniqueness.
Compare to the high intensive landuse in northern and western part of Taiwan, Taroko National Park, which is located in the eastern, is covered by dense forest and preserves diverse habitats to wildlife. There are nearly 2,300 taxa of vascular plants on records in Taiwan, and 595 of these species are endemic. 34 of these endemic species are indigenous in Taroko National Park only. It is the most amount of endemic and rare species among the other National Parks. Moreover, the biome from subtropical rainforest to subarctic alpine plants of Taroko National Park shows the diversity, continuity and integrity of vegetation. It is the most representative reserves of Taiwan. According to the World Heritage's natural criteria (ⅸ) and (ⅹ), Taroko National Park has qualification to nominate for properties in UNESCO’s World Heritage List.