Connecting with
the Countryside

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.

"This type of cooperation between the city and an NPO is unusual," says Take Hiroki (29), a city employee who works nearly full time at Satoyama Net. He says non-profit management brings a lot of benefits. "The NPO is flexible. They can do things the city can't."

Maeda, for his part, says the fact that the city created a center for satoyama preservation activities and has taken a proactive role in supporting those activities is a key part of what has made the project so successful. In 2008, 2,416 people participated in activities at Satoyama Net Ayabe, which was also featured in the media twenty-four times and hosted visitors from Korea, Taiwan, and regional governments around Japan.

"There are a lot of people these days who have no connection to the countryside but yearn for that connection," says Maeda of the organization's remarkable success in attracting urbanites. Some of those visitors want more than just a weekend retreat: in 2008, 163 people came in or called for advice about moving to the area, and six families or individuals actually moved to Ayabe after participating in an exchange event. (Ayabe city hall offers similar assistance for people who want to move to rural villages, and recently built a housing development targeted at people who want to live in the country and farm.)

Less easy to capture with statistics is the region's willingness to experiment with innovative land management projects. A few hundred meters down the road from the old schoolhouse, two black beef cows and a large amount of electric fence are on the front lines of one such project initiated by the Ministry of the Environment and managed by Satoyama Net Ayabe.

The goal of the project is to reestablish a buffer zone between forest and village. As fields and woodlands that were once well-managed are abandoned, the overgrown areas become ideal habitat for monkeys, wild boar, deer, and even bears, who have lost much of their historic habitat to plantation forests and development. These wild animals often venture into towns to feast on rice, tree fruit, and vegetables, causing serious crop damage.

The manpower and economic motivation to manage these buffer zones using traditional methods have disappeared, so the Ayabe project is testing out whether livestock might be able to do the job. Two cows rented from a beef farm have been installed in a strip of land between cultivated fields and forested hills, where they graze low bushes and undergrowth. That creates a new buffer zone inhospitable to mountain wildlife—though Maeda says it's too early to say whether the project will work long-term.

Thirty-five kilometers away, in a 119-year-old farmhouse on the far eastern edge of Ayabe, a different kind of project is underway. The farmhouse and its owner, Shibahara Kinue (77), are part of a farm-stay program aimed at giving visitors a taste of country life and enticing them to move to the area permanently. Guests of the graceful and energetic Shibahara are treated to traditional home-cooking, bathe in a huge iron pot heated by firewood, and sleep in a tatami room overlooking rice fields, forest and a clear mountain stream.

Thanks to this program and other projects that increase the visibility of remote areas, new residents are finally trickling into some of Ayabe's villages. The tiny hamlet of Ichishi, a kilometer-and-a-half upstream from Shibahara's farm, is among them. Until recently the youngest of Ichishi's fourteen residents was over seventy. Then last December, a young couple from Osaka built a house in the village and moved in, much to the delight of Shibahara and other elderly residents. This spring the couple's first son was born.

"Right when we thought Ichishi was on the edge—that it wouldn't last another ten years—they moved in. I want to support them even if it's just a little bit," recounts Shibahara over a cup of salty Uji green tea and a plate of homemade buckwheat cookies.

Satono Kohji (35) and Mari (36) may be new to farming—Kohji was a postal worker and Mari did computer work before they moved to Ayabe—but they have plenty of enthusiasm. This year they rented several fields Shibahara is no longer able to cultivate, along with other abandoned fields in Ichishi, and are growing organic rice.

"They planted the rice by hand just like we used to do years ago, and called their friends from Osaka to help," recalls Shibahara, who joined in the planting herself. The Satonos often host international farm volunteers to help with the work.

This type of collaboration between city and country, long-time resident and newcomer is a promising model for maintaining Ayabe's satoyama landscape. Shibahara embodies the energy and openness to new ideas that fuels that collaboration.

"We need to be active and not just talk about the past," she says. "I'm doing everything I can to leave this place for future generations, with clean rivers and fireflies and beautiful nature."

Models of Sustainability

While satoyama conservation projects in Ayabe center on revitalizing agricultural areas, some other model regions have focused more directly on biodiversity conservation and habitat restoration. In Kanagawa Prefecture, for example, unused fields have been restored as marsh habitat and a tax has been implemented for preserving water source environments. Finding profitable uses for the byproducts of satoyama management i s another common challenge: in Kumamoto Prefecture invasive bamboo is used as a building material, in Kyoto bamboo grass from meadows is used to thatch roofs, and in Kanagawa fallen leaves collected in woodlands are turned into fertilizer.

The Ministry of the Environment's Kawaguchi says he hopes these projects will provide a useful reference not only in Japan but also in other countries struggling to use rural areas sustainably while maintaining biodiversity.

"[Japan has] a long tradition of using nature sustainably. I think in different parts of the world there are many similar cases, but they are not really known or systematically organized. People don't understand the value of satoyama-like landscapes and the services they provide to humans," says Kawaguchi, who heads the international component of the Satoyama Initiative, a project started last year in cooperation with United Nations University's Institute of Advanced Studies.

"The ultimate objective is to establish a framework which many players can take part in, including governments, NGOs and international organizations," he explains. "Within that framework we're going to share information and establish international models that people can use to promote sustainable management of secondary nature." Starting in 2009 a series of international meetings have been held to begin putting together that framework.

Japan has long been known as a place where great natural beauty is enshrined in art and culture. While there is truth in that image, the Japanese have also been managing and using their natural environment for thousands of years. As it prepares to host this year's 10^th Conference of Parties of the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP10), Japan seems ready to take on a new role rooted in its history of sustainable land use: that of an international leader in preserving biodiversity not only in rainforests and coral reefs, but in the fields, forests and pastures that support our daily life.