In the Pines

IMG_6093 , originally uploaded by taintus . There has been a lot of talk about bears in the village recently. I've heard that there is an overabundance of chestnuts and acorns in the Kiso area this year (though I've heard conflicting reports of low volume), which means more bears. Regardless of this particular factor, many people in Otaki suggest that bear-human encounters are increasing. There may be many causes, but a general ecological shift is likely the main culprit. Wartime over-cutting in backcountry areas, followed by heavy planting of timber trees has limited nutrient rich habitat for many animals, including bears. Forests around many villages, which tend to be locally managed for mulitple uses, on the other hand are often comprised of diverse trees, including a variety of fruit-bearing broadleaf varieties (including chestnut and acorn trees). So, guess where the bears are going for food? We've had several bear sightings in Otaki recently. To the point where a...

"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...

This bill increases wildness, protects endangered species, and detoxifies — once and for all — the word “wilderness.” In an op-ed piece by Yale Environment 360, a publication of the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, writer Rick Bass offers a look at the collaborative process that has resulted in the “Forest Jobs and Recreation Act” (known as the "Tester Bill" after Senator Jon Tester", which would be the first wilderness legislation, the author claims, in Montana in 26 years. Find the original op-ed here . I would love to see such collaboration here in Otaki Village. In a recent Asahi Shimbun 朝日新聞 article (no longer available online, but I can send copies to anyone interested--Japanese only), the author quotes residents as saying that national forests are "foreign country" and that local people have little or no say in management decisions. On the other hand, officials from the forestry agency are quoted in the article as saying that they...

For details about Shizen - ko and kayak tours please call or visit the website of Ontake Adventure (おんたけアドベンチャー). 0264-48-1208 Some landscapes lend themselves to the aloof gazing of observers. For example, California's Yosemite Valley with its enormous walls of granite, or Japan's Kamikochi , which offers sweeping views of some of the Hida Range's finest alpine cirques, come to mind. Otaki's Shizen - ko 自然湖, meaning "natural lake", is not such a landscape. Rather, its beauty and grandeur come only from patient exploration and observation. The lake invites intimacy and refuses to welcome those who are unwilling to engage it, both physically and mentally. There is no overlook; no viewing from afar. In fact, much of Shizen - ko is hidden behind bends of trees or within vertical canyon walls. The landscape is, therefore, defiant of the insouciant looks of passers-by. In order to gain any sense of it, one must enter the lake and sit directly up...

This photo was taken about a week and a half ago. The paddies in Otaki have been flooded to allow for rice seedlings to be planted. This is known a ta-ue 田植. The process creates in the landscape a set of parallel worlds stacked vertically upon one another. I wonder, sometimes, if one is truer than the other. Rice seedlings sprouted early this year and so ta-ue was also moved up about a week. Residents continue to tell me how unusual this year is. Global warming tends to be the favored culprit as I probe deeper with questions. How will the Otaki community respond to a changing climate? Will it be as simple as planting a week early? How can human members of the community predict some of the changes ahead? What can they do now to prepare? Contemplations sprouting from rice paddies.

Just a quick note to give a link to a blog post at "Resilience Science" about a Worldwatch Magazine article by Thomas Homer-Dixon discussing the work of C.S. "Buzz" Holling, an ecologist who has worked with complex systems theory to formulate concepts such as the adaptive cycle and panarchy . Holling's work has been influential in the development of resilience thinking, which is an approach I used in my own research and have mentioned in previous posts. Link to the "Resilience Science" post Link to the Resilience Alliance homepage (you can also find this link in the sidebar)

Last week I made a short presentation about my fieldwork during an anthropology seminar at Kyoto University. The paper I presented covers some of my early thoughts about thinking of landscape transformation in the context of resource extraction. Resource extraction and landscape transformation in Otaki Today, many of Japan’s rural areas are in a state of crisis. Rapid depopulation, lack of capital investment, and the withdrawal of government assistance have left rural communities with few options; many have amalgamated with neighboring municipalities under a program meant to simplify the national bureaucracy. Those communities that have been unwilling or unable to amalgamate have, for the most part, been left on their own to maintain basic services while trying to find sustainable paths into the future. The situation has left these communities economically and politically disadvantaged, as well as environmentally and socially vulnerable. The historic presence of these asymmetric r...

The following is a link to a paper providing a brief overview of my research that I will be presenting during a panel discussion entitled, "Graduate Student Collaborations and Engagements in Environmental Change Research", at the American Anthropological Association (AAA) meetings in San Francisco this month. Take a look if it's of any interest. Socio-natual resilience: Anthropological engagements with environmental change research

An article on the Daily Yonder website suggests that in the U.S. rising energy prices will have a disproportionate impact on rural communities. The article's author, Penn State geographer Amy Glasmeier, states that: . . .for rural residents, high energy prices unleash a cascade of bad news that ripples through everyday life. Compared with urban areas, residents of rural areas are more dependent on oil for everything, from transportation to heating to making a living. Rural residents tend to drive longer distances to access basic goods and services – including health care – and they have fewer transportation alternatives such as public transportation. Though I agree with Glasmeier's argument, I wonder if the intensity of these problems is not unique to the structure of the U.S. socio-natural landscape. Obviously, rural areas in Japan are being impacted in similar ways by the rising cost of energy--some places more than others (particularly fishing communities )--but as I look ...

A post called " Shareland " on KenElwood , a blog that I follow regularly, touched on a theme that I've been thinking a lot about lately--the balance between nature and society--or, a bit less abstractly: the balance within each individual between being in nature and being in society. KenElwood made a good point about extremes: being too much in nature and being too much in society. This is a fascinating dichotomy to explore--though I wonder if, ultimately, it's not a false dichotomy; I think KenElwood is leaning towards this view as well (though I don't presume to speak for him). Perhaps "false dichotomy" is the wrong phrasing, because I think the dichotomy is real. However, I'm inclined to say that the dichotomy is a recent creation; one that stems from the development of the capitalist socio -economic system. Those who have talked about the extreme of being in society have referred almost exclusively to capitalist society. I'm thinking ...

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...

A friend in the village, I-san, has talked with me on a couple of occasions about creating a eco-friendly burial ground on Mt. Ontake. I'm intrigued by the idea, and so was happy to find the following blog entry recently. There is a growing literature concerning the negative environmental impacts of western burial practices (i.e., attempting to preserve a body with embalming fluid, coffin, concrete, etc.). See the Centre for Natural Burial website for more information. Ontake-san is a sacred mountain, and many worshipers expect that their spirits will return there after they die (stone monuments on the mountain are erected for this purpose). So, it seems like a logical step to move towards creating a green burial ground on the mountain. Anyway, seems no less obscene--in my mind anyway--than the ski resorts, tourist shops, and mountain huts that currently litter the mountain.

Otaki is literally being engulfed by the forest. Abandoned fields and plots of forest have quickly become overgrown and wildlife has moved in. The areas of thick forest are also unappealing to most villagers, giving them a sense of becoming enclosed. For these reasons, residents of Otaki participate in 環境整備作業 (environmental maintenance/management/improvement activities--something like that). Yesterday, I finally had a chance to participate in one of these projects: clearing weeds and trees from along the prefectural road that leads from Makio Dam to Otaki. There were only about 10 of us there that day, which isn't bad for a village of 1,000, where a third of the population is over 65 years of age. It was a hard day of work, but they let me use a chainsaw, so I had no complaints. I don't know what the organizers were thinking. Also, I think my chainsaw skills were being whispered about. Ah, I'm the egghead; not supposed to be too proficient with such tools. With such...

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...