In the Pines

"Probably with my generation the village will go back to forest." This quote is from an August 23rd Japan Times article by independant journalist, Winifred Bird, in which she offers an account of what she dubs "Japan's creeping natural disaster"--the loss of satoyama 里山 landscape in Japan's rural areas. Find the original article here . In her article Bird points out what I would argue are the two major causes of rural landscape transformation in Japan. The first, heavy over-cutting of mixed and broadleaf forests followed by afforestation using timber varieties in the second half of the last century. The second, rapid urbanization accompanied by mass migration of residents from rural to metropolitan communities. The result has been an unprecedented conversion away from human-managed satoyama landscapes, which fostered a mosaic of diverse eco-tones, to often uniform, un-managed plantation-style forests that are increasingly overgrown. The abandoned hom...

An article in Northern Woodlands Magazine entitled, A Forest for Every Town , talks about the Vermont Town Forest Program , which aims to ensure common forestlands for municipalities in Vermont. The program's idea has grown, in part, out of movements, such as the slow food movement, that strive to use local products. It sounds like the program is quite successful so far. From the article: Hinesburg’s forests exemplify town forest potential. They have recreation: world-class mountain biking trails, along with skiing, hiking, and horseback riding. They also serve as outdoor classrooms, both for local teachers and for the University of Vermont, whose students have conducted dozens of projects there. And the older forest also has active forest management: one recent harvest took out white ash, which was then milled and kiln-dried locally and installed to replace the floor of the Hinesburg Town Hall, which had been sanded so many times that the tongue of each tongue-and-groove boa...

I've been away in Kyoto for the past week, busy with university busi-ness, so haven't had the time to post. However, just before I left for Kyoto I took an afternoon to walk into the Seto-gawa (瀬戸川) area here in Otaki, and have wanted to share a bit about the place ever since. I heard about Seto-gawa soon after I arrived in the village. People told me if I wanted to see a more "pristine" forest, that was the place to go (I recognize "pristine" is a problematic word; here it means that SOME of the trees haven't been cut since the Edo Period (1603-1867)--so, 200-300 year old trees perhaps). Anyway, I had wanted to see the place since that time, but never seemed to find the right time. Well, a week ago I had one of those moments when I knew it was time to go. . . nigiri -ed some onigiri , grabbed my pack--a few essentials, and flew out the door. The Seto-gawa ( gawa , or kawa , by the way, means river) tumbles down a steep mountainside to join the Otaki...

The other day I had the privilege of meeting with T-san, widely considered Otaki's top hunter, and one of the best in Nagano prefecture. The conversation was illuminating. T-san has a detailed and nuanced understanding of the movement of wildlife in Otaki, the Kiso region, and Japan as a whole. T-san spoke of what he thought was the loonacy of the National Forest Agency's heavy cutting in the Kiso Valley, and Otaki in particular. He considered it a waste that trees that had been nurtured some hundreds of years were felled with little thought. Now, he lamented, it's just bamboo grass (a hearty, fast growing grass that dominates much of the groundcover in Otaki). In the postwar period, employing this kind of clear-cutting, the Forest Agency advanced further and further into the mountains around Otaki. Coversion of older, mixed forests, to younger, plantation-style forests reduced the overall area of suitable wildlife habitat. With less and less habitat in the back fore...

The Nakagoshi section of the village sits on a wide butte above the Otaki River. The butte stretches out in a half circle from a large escarpment of rock and brush above which sits the school and the rest of the central village. A significant portion of Nakagoshi is made up of fields and rice paddies, probably the largest agricultural space in the village. On a cloud-filled afternoon, after morning rains had lifted, I descended into the Nakagoshi section walking along a series of roads that zig-zag down t he steep embankment at the north end of the section. Here a row of homes stand against the vertical wall with their faces turned to a hillside on the far side of the Otaki River from Nakagoshi. I stopped at a small wooden shrine to admire the stone buddhas that sit on the wall around it. Most of these hotoke-sama were worn from lives spent out in the open, exposed to all nature's elements; a couple were lacking heads, which had been replaced with regular round stones. Rest...

A second opportunity to volunteer in a local forest here in Nagaokakyo has spurred thoughts of spirit in relation to the ways that humans connect to forests, mountains, and other landscapes. My wife accompanied me to this volunteer course that took place on Saturday, November 24th. The course was held this time in the neighboring municipality of Oyamazaki 大山崎. The morning was spent sitting at a community center listening to various officials (who may have outnumbered the volunteers) speak of forests, economics, and management plans. The language was predictable: talk of watershed management, inactive landholders, and large amounts of funding from a national beverage company with a beer and whiskey factory in Oyamazaki. The speakers maintained an air of authority as they spoke scientifically and bureaucratically about forest management. The volunteers were left to listen and shuffle through a small mountain of paper. By lunchtime all of us were itching to get outside--not so ...