15-Year Integrated Forest Environment Education in Shimokawa, Hokkaido to Support Sustainable Forest Management

JFS Newsletter No.184 (December 2017)

Copyright 2017 NPO Forest Life All Rights Reserved.

The last issue introduced the town of Shimokawa, Hokkaido, whose industrial promotion and regional energy supply were developed on the basis of its local forests. Years of efforts there bore fruit and starting from 2014, the trees planted by former generations have been cut down and seedlings planted in their place. This has enabled the town to implement recycling-based forest management and realize sustainable forest management. Based on its forest resources, the town has generated various new industries and the number of people moving there is increasing.

For Shimokawa, forests are an important resource for generating income, producing energy for industries and the local region and attracting people to move there. To protect these important forest resources, the town is also educating its people about forests. This issue of the JFS newsletter introduces a comprehensive forest environment education program targeting children from preschool to high school ages over a course of 15 years.

Read more...

Another Role for Igune (premises forest)

Copyright Shigeki Iwabuchi All Rights Reserved.

Tohoku Fukko Nikki (Tohoku Reconstruction Diary), a weekly feature in the Tokyo Shimbun newspaper, delivers news stories on reconstruction efforts in communities devastated by the earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan in March 2011. The articles are written by the JKSK Yui-Yui Project, an initiative to support survivors of the 2011 disaster by the non-profit organization JKSK Empowering Women Empowering Society. We present below an article that was published on June 6, 2017, in an issue about the role of Igune (Premises forest), or woodland homesteads.

Among the rice pests, shield bugs are most troublesome. These bugs, which are the size of a grain of rice, generate spotted paddy rice. Before the rice is fully ripe, the grains exist in a milky state. These bugs consume some of the liquid with their pointed mouths, leaving black spots on the rice. With more of these spots, the rice is downgraded, and it fetches a lower price at market.

Although pesticides can control these bugs, there are natural predators that can also eliminate them. Such predators include spiders that weave a dish-like web, and with large numbers present in chemical-free paddy fields, their webs provide beautiful scenery in the morning fog.

Where these spiders spend the winter was previously unknown, but last year's survey found that they spend winter in the trees surrounding farmhouses from Miyagi Prefecture to Iwate Prefecture. The trees surrounding farmhouses are known as Igune (Premises forest) in eastern Japan, the fact unknown to many.

Igune are already known to protect houses from winter hard winds, floods, and earthquake; however, Igune also provide homes for natural predators. From this perspective, frogs and dragonflies probably also live in Igune

Osaki tilled soil area refers to a common farming practice in the Osaki Flat Plain, which spreads throughout northern Miyagi Prefecture. In Osaki area, about 24,300 houses -- or 40 percent of all houses -- have Igune. This helped system to reduce the impact of the Great East Japan Earthquake, despite the most intense seismic activity among affected inland areas being recorded in this area. As a result, Osaki tilled soil area is now on its way to being approved as a Globally Important Agricultural Heritage System (GIAHS). *¹

The ability of Igune to provide homes for natural predators maintains stable agricultural production by protecting rice from pests, which contributes to food self-sufficiency. People living in remote and isolated communities in the Osaki area reported being able to survive for more than a month without external aid or support in the aftermath of the Great East Japan Earthquake. *²

According to Japan's Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF), GIAHS are specific agricultural systems authorized by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). When an agricultural system that has been shaped through generations by adapting to society and the environment, is integrated into the culture, landscapes and biodiversity fostered by the agriculture, it becomes a GIAHS.

Agricultural villages with rich rural historical culture, as seen in Osaki and other GIAHS designated areas, tell us the importance of symbiotic systems to enhance biotic and cultural diversity.

Shigeki Iwabuchi
Representative
NPO Tambo

*1 Osaki Kodo's Traditional Water Management System is newly designated as GIAHS | FAO
*2 Information added by the author for this coverage at JFS.

Transforming Child-Rearing Frustrations into Ghost Picture Cards Helps Make Families Happy

Copyright Enra Enra All Rights Reserved.

A team of three Japanese child-rearing mothers, "Enra Enra," formed in 2015, is supporting parents and their children through workshops held at schools, nurseries and community centers. The team--Ichi-Yon-Go, group leader and author of children's books featuring ghosts; Yukinko, facilitator; and Yosshii, workshop designer and writer--want to help parents and children enjoy the time they spend together. Their greeting words are "Gokigenyo-kai," a word play meaning 'Hello, sweet ghosts' or 'See you, sweet ghosts.'

In their workshop, dubbed "School for Sweet Ghosts," children and parents enjoy word play and cutting paper to make picture cards of various ghosts, and reading cards on which they write words describing the ghosts. Participants channel the negative feelings they experience in their everyday lives such as indecisiveness, worry, confusion and frustration into the ghost cards they create. When all the picture cards and reading cards are made, they play games with the cards and have lots of fun together.

At the workshop, participants sometimes burst into laughter when a ghost appears embodying child-rearing problems with which they sympathize. The transformation of frustrated feelings into visible figures of ghosts allows them to see their feelings objectively. This then enables them to experience changes in their thinking and feeling.

As of November 2017, the team marked their 100th workshop and card game event with more than 2,500 participants in total. In addition to the workshop for parents and children, they are now receiving a growing number of requests for adult-focused workshops from people working in fields related to children's education and childcare. The team intends to evolve their workshop activity further as they seek better solutions to current societal needs.