Japan is searching for new ways to conserve and manage the satoyama environments that have been abandoned by modern urban society. Winifred Bird introduces the Ministry of the Environment's Satoyama Initiative, and homes in on the activities of one remarkably successful NPO, Satoyama Net Ayabe.
by Winifred Bird
Japan Journal
January, 2010
Life's not easy for 3,155 species of plants and animals officially threatened with extinction in Japan. There's urbanization and habitat loss to contend with, invasive species to battle, and illegal collectors to dodge. Not to mention¡Ä the under-utilization of the natural environment?
It may seem counterintuitive, but the abandonment of once-well-managed rural environments poses a serious threat to many plants and animals in Japan. Over hundreds of years, humans created a mosaic of rice fields, meadows, coppice woodlands, and agricultural waterways that now covers approximately forty percent of the Japanese archipelago. These areas are called "satochi-satoyama" or simply "satoyama" in Japanese and are recognized by many experts as both models of sustainable land use and hotspots of biodiversity. Giant waterbugs, grey-faced buzzards, harvest mice and dogtooth violets are just a few of the species that thrive in Japan's secondary nature.
Unfortunately, many of these species are now endangered. As Japan transitioned from an agricultural to an industrial society over the past century (and particularly the past fifty years), satoyama areas have been transformed. Urban sprawl, road-building and timber-planting wiped out some areas, while depopulation and new farming methods led to the abandonment of others.
These changes have had a profound effect not only on the human communities in rural areas but on their biological communities as well: 2007's Third National Biodiversity Strategy of Japan identifies changes in satoyama areas as one the nation's three main "crises of biodiversity," and the Ministry of the Environment estimates that over half of the species on Japan's Red List live in such areas. That's added a new urgency to longstanding efforts by government and citizen groups to revitalize rural Japan.
"We have to use nature within limits," says the Ministry of the Environment's Kawaguchi Daichi. "If we go beyond those limits we end up exploiting nature. But if we don't use it enough we lose the rich ecosystem we have right now. That balance is important."
So how to find that balance and conserve Japan's countryside plants and animals? Simply providing protection from development and pollution doesn't address the need for active management. Winding back the clock a hundred years to the days of wood-fired hearths and manual farm work, meanwhile, is unrealistic. Instead, Japan is searching for new ways to manage the rural environments that have been abandoned by modern urban society.
The Satoyama Initiative
The Ministry of the Environment's Satoyama Initiative is one recent project that aims to promote the sustainable management and use of secondary nature. In 2004 the Ministry selected four model project areas, which represent various types of satoyama landscape (woodland species and geography vary across Japan). The regions also face a variety of different pressures. The model project region in central Honshu's Hyogo Prefecture, for instance, is characterized by red pine forests and suffers from encroaching development, while in Kumamoto Prefecture's model project region evergreen broadleaf forests dominate and invasive bamboo is a challenge.
From 2004 to 2005 the Ministry of the Environment supported a wide range of stakeholders in each model area who worked together to create multifaceted satoyama preservation action plans. Participants included farmers and landowners long engaged in caring for the land, NPOs, local and urban residents, academic experts, and government officials at the local, prefectural and national level. Starting in 2006 each of the model areas has been working independently to put those plans into action, with the support of related governmental bodies such as the Forestry Agency and Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism. By publicizing the results of these collaborative projects, the Ministry of the Environment hopes to provide inspiration and concrete examples for rural regions nationwide.
This fall, I visited the city of Ayabe to see what a model project looks like on the ground. Ayabe, along with neighboring Fukuchiyama and Miyazu, make up the Northern Kyoto Model Project area. The region is characterized by small farms interwoven with Konara oak woodland and faces rapid depopulation. (A note on terminology: Because many small towns have merged to form larger ones over the past 120 years in Japan, what is referred to as a city often doesn't look like one. Ayabe, for instance, is composed of one town and many small villages in the midst of 347 square kilometers of pastoral countryside).
Satoyama Net Ayabe
Driving along Ayabe's winding country roads, escapees from the hustle and bustle of Kyoto could be forgiven for wondering if they had stumbled into one of Miyazaki Hayao's animated rural wonderlands. The sky above Ayabe on a cold September morning is charcoal gray, the rice fields brilliant yellow, and the forested hills deep shadowy green. Immaculate white cranes stalk the fields, now and then jabbing at a plump frog. On the hillsides steep-roofed farmhouses keep silent watch over orderly vegetable gardens, and grandmotherly women in flower-print bonnets stand chatting with neighbors by the side of the road.
For all its charm, however, the city of 36,546 people has not been spared the depopulation that afflicts rural areas nationwide. Japan has one of the world's most aged and rapidly shrinking populations. Twenty-two percent of Japanese are over the age of sixty-five, and the population is projected to shrink by about 25 million people by 2050.
Those trends are on fast-forward in the countryside. Ayabe is losing about 300 people each year and has hundreds of empty houses. The population has shrunk by 30 percent since 1950, and nearly 30 percent of residents are over the age of sixty-five—which means the first step towards protecting farmland biodiversity is getting more people onto the land and teaching them how to take care of it.
In an old schoolhouse in the midst of rice and buckwheat fields, that is exactly what is underway. Visitors from Kobe, Kyoto and Osaka learn how to grow buckwheat and rice, make charcoal, and bake bread in wood-fired ovens. Local volunteers clear mountain paths and maintain village woodlands. People gather from around the country to attend seminars on how to make a living in the countryside. The schoolhouse is called Satoyama Net Ayabe, and it plays a central role in Ayabe's satoyama preservation action plan.
"Our goal is to increase the number of people moving to and visiting Ayabe. We bring people together and connect people from the city and country," says Maeda Yoshinori, a forty-year-old Ayabe native who has directed the organization since 2006.
Satoyama Net Ayabe was originally established by the city of Ayabe, which has been promoting settlement and exchange with urban populations for the past decade. When a local elementary school closed down due to lack of students, the city turned it into a hub for those activities, later adding a new meeting hall and lodging facility. In 2006 the organization became an independent non-profit, although the city maintains a strong connection with its activities.
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Read the rest of this article at the Japan Journal here.
