Satoyama Kosaku
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is a Japanese term applied to the border zone or area between mountain foothills and arable flat land. Literally, ''sato'' () means village, and ''yama'' () means hill or mountain. Satoyama have been developed through centuries of small-scale agricultural and forestry use. The concept of satoyama has several definitions. The first definition is the management of forests through local agricultural communities, using coppicing. During the
Edo Edo ( ja, , , "bay-entrance" or "estuary"), also romanized as Jedo, Yedo or Yeddo, is the former name of Tokyo. Edo, formerly a ''jōkamachi'' (castle town) centered on Edo Castle located in Musashi Province, became the ''de facto'' capital of ...
era, young and fallen leaves were gathered from community forests to use as fertilizer in wet rice paddy fields. Villagers also used wood for construction, cooking and heating. More recently, satoyama has been defined not only as mixed community forests, but also as entire landscapes that are used for agriculture. According to this definition, satoyama contains a mosaic of mixed forests, rice paddy fields, dry rice fields, grasslands, streams, ponds, and reservoirs for irrigation. Farmers use the grasslands to feed horses and cattle. Streams, ponds, and reservoirs play an important role in adjusting water levels of paddy fields and farming fish as a food source.


Population, ownership, and land use

Population decline in villages has been a significant driving factor in the disappearance of satoyama from the Japanese landscape. Economic growth from 1955 to 1975 created significant social and economic gaps between cities and villages and led to the depopulation of mountain villages, where life was made difficult by natural conditions such as steep slopes, landslides, and snowfall. Ownership patterns have also been a factor. Shared ownership of satoyama forests near villages has been common since the beginning of the 19th century. These forests were logged for economic considerations and the construction of houses. Because forests near villages have been cut down, old-growth forests today (including beech forests at high elevations) are often located far from villages. Inhabitants use wood from their private forests and conifer plantations for fuel. By the 1960s, satoyama were utilized as
rice fields A paddy field is a flooded field of arable land used for growing semiaquatic crops, most notably rice and taro. It originates from the Neolithic rice-farming cultures of the Yangtze River basin in southern China, associated with pre-Aust ...
, plowed fields, shifting cultivation,
grasslands A grassland is an area where the vegetation is dominated by grasses (Poaceae). However, sedge (Cyperaceae) and rush (Juncaceae) can also be found along with variable proportions of legumes, like clover, and other herbs. Grasslands occur natural ...
, thatch fields,
secondary forest A secondary forest (or second-growth forest) is a forest or woodland area which has re-grown after a timber harvest or clearing for agriculture, until a long enough period has passed so that the effects of the disturbance are no longer evident. ...
s for fuel, and giant bamboo forests.


Biodiversity

Various habitat types for wildlife have been provided by mixed satoyama landscape as a result of the Japanese traditional agricultural system that also facilitates the movement of wildlife between a variety of habitats. The migration of wild animals can occur between ponds, rice paddies, grasslands, forests, and also from one village to another. Ponds, reservoirs, and streams in particular play a significant role in the survival of water dependent species such as dragonflies, and fireflies. In the early stages of their life cycle, they spend most of their time in water. Deciduous oaks such as '' Quercus acutissima'' and ''
Quercus serrata ''Quercus serrata'', the jolcham oak, (, ) is an East Asian species of tree in the beech family. It is native to China, Taiwan, Japan, and Korea. Description ''Quercus serrata'' is a deciduous oak tree reaching a height of occupying elevations ...
'' are planted by farmers to maintain deciduous broad-leaf trees. Succession to dense and dark laurel forest is prevented by farmers that cut down these trees for firewood and charcoal every 15 to 20 years. Many plant and animal species are able to live in these deciduous forests because of traditional management practices.


Causalities of disappearance

Satoyama have been disappearing due to the drastic shift in natural resources from charcoal and firewood to oil and the change from compost to chemical fertilizer. Also, the problem of aging in Japanese society can cause the disappearance of satoyama because there are fewer people who can work in satoyama which are considered as intermediate disturbance on forests such as coppicing and harvesting trees for timber and
charcoal Charcoal is a lightweight black carbon residue produced by strongly heating wood (or other animal and plant materials) in minimal oxygen to remove all water and volatile constituents. In the traditional version of this pyrolysis process, cal ...
, cutting shrubs for
firewood Firewood is any wooden material that is gathered and used for fuel. Generally, firewood is not highly processed and is in some sort of recognizable log or branch form, compared to other forms of wood fuel like pellets or chips. Firewood can ...
and collecting litter as
compost Compost is a mixture of ingredients used as plant fertilizer and to improve soil's physical, chemical and biological properties. It is commonly prepared by decomposing plant, food waste, recycling organic materials and manure. The resulting m ...
. These human impacts can help the success of the forest occur. As the final causality of the disappearing of satoyama, pine dominated secondary forests in satoyama were increasingly destroyed since
pine wilt disease ''Bursaphelenchus xylophilus'', commonly known as pine wood nematode or pine wilt nematode (PWN), is a species of nematode that infects trees in the ''Pinus'' genus of coniferous trees and causes the disease pine wilt.Satoyama Initiative was established at UNESCO headquarters in Paris in 2009 as a global effort to realize "societies in harmony with nature" through the recognition and promotion of satoyama landscapes and similar landscapes around the world as a good model for conservation of biodiversity and human well-being. In 2010, the Satoyama Initiative was recognized in Decision X/32 of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD COP) as "a potentially useful tool to better understand and support human-influenced natural environments for the benefit of biodiversity and human well-being" and "consistent and in harmony with the Convention". The
International Partnership for the Satoyama Initiative The Satoyama Initiative is a global initiative based on the concept of Satoyama — a traditional rural landscape in Japan. The initiative promotes the integration of conservation and the sustainable use of biodiversity in production landscapes, o ...
was also launched at the same CBD COP meeting and taken note of in the Decision as " one mechanism to carry out activities identified by the Satoyama Initiative including collecting and analysing case-studies, distilling lessons, and promoting research on different practices of sustainable use of biological resources, as well as increasing awareness and supporting on-the-ground projects and activities in human-influenced natural environments".http://www.cbd.int/doc/decisions/cop-10/cop-10-dec-32-en.pdf


See also

* Beneficial insects; insect—Relationship to humans * Biodiversity banking * Companion planting * Ecotone * Land use, land-use change and forestry * Masanobu Fukuoka * My Neighbor Totoro, anime film set in the Satoyama of Saitama prefecture, by Studio Ghibli * Silviculture * Synanthrope * Terrace (agriculture) * Wildlife management


References


Further reading

* Knight, Catherine. ''Asian Studies Review''. 'The concept of satoyama and its role in the contemporary discourse on nature conservation in Japan'. 34(4), 421 (December 2010). * Takeuchi, K. & Brown, R.D. & Washitani, I. & Tsunekawa, A. & Yokohari, M., 2008. ''Satoyama: The Traditional Rural Landscape of Japan'' Second Edition, Springer. , . A comprehensive commentary book of Satoyama, including the conservation.


External links


Website of the International Partnership for the Satoyama Initiative (IPSI)

Participatory Conservation Approaches for Satoyama, the Traditional Forest and Agricultural Landscape of Japan
Ambio: A Journal of the Human Environment; The
Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences ( sv, Kungliga Vetenskapsakademien) is one of the Swedish Royal Academies, royal academies of Sweden. Founded on 2 June 1739, it is an independent, non-governmental scientific organization that takes special ...

SATOYAMA Gallery
Pictures of satoyama
NOVA online: Japan's Secret Garden
Public Broadcasting Service The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educati ...

Human Well–Being and the Restoration of Satoyama
United Nations University
Wildlife in satoyama; The Village Forest Environmental Biology Laboratory (里山と雑木林の生きものたち;里山環境生物学研究所)
In Japanese)
In the Pines
A blog offering an anthropological perspective of satoyama life in Nagano, Japan * Satoyama in the world through NHK web site (In Japanese with photo gallery) *
世界里山紀行、フィンランド 森・妖精との対話
(World satoyama travel in Finland, Literally; Forest - Dialog with fairy), NHK *
世界里山紀行、ポーランド 水辺に響きあういのち
(World satoyama travel in Poland, Literally; The lives echoing around waterside), NHK *
世界里山紀行、中国・雲南、竹とともに生きる
(World satoyama travel in Yunnan,
China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
, Literally;
Symbiotic Symbiosis (from Greek , , "living together", from , , "together", and , bíōsis, "living") is any type of a close and long-term biological interaction between two different biological organisms, be it mutualistic, commensalistic, or parasit ...
human life with bamboo), NHK * Satoyama videos produced by the United Nations University (on YouTube) *
Harvest time in Satoyama
and associated article on
Our World 2.0 ''Our World 2.0'' is an online magazine created by the United Nations University Media Centre, located in Tokyo, Japan. At launch, it initially focused on climate change, peak oil, biodiversity, and food security. The magazine was affiliated ...
br>Harvet time in Satoyama
*
Life in a vibrant satoyama forest
and associated article on
Our World 2.0 ''Our World 2.0'' is an online magazine created by the United Nations University Media Centre, located in Tokyo, Japan. At launch, it initially focused on climate change, peak oil, biodiversity, and food security. The magazine was affiliated ...
br>Greetings from Satoyama
{{Authority control Rural community development Agriculture in Japan Nature conservation in Japan Japanese words and phrases