Cultural service provided by Satoyama landscape

and its role for the conservation of biodiversity

Takakazu YUMOTO Research Institute for Humanity and Nature (RIHN)

Satoyama (in Japanese) ： (literally) village mountain =secondary forests nearby human settlements.

Satoyama ： a heavily human-impacted ecosystem which people have been repeatedly used, for harvesting firewood, making charcoals, collecting litter and leaved-branches for manure, obtaining wild plants and fungi for foods for several hundreds years.

Satoyama: an ecosystem which has been modified by human being for the purpose of obtaining provisioning services in sustainable ways. Satoyama connotes not only the landscape itself, but also traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) for obtaining sustainable ecosystem service.

Satoyama landscape: a traditional rural landscape in Japan (not only secondary forest, but also including farmlands) Satoyama landscape is characterized by a mosaic of different land uses to obtain different types of ecosystem services. In the Japanese Archipelago, paddy field cultivation began in the small basin, alluvial fan and fluvial terrace, not in large delta. Owing to tiny and fragmented topographic areas, monoculture has not developed until recently.

As Satoyama provides various materials, people have intentionally kept high diversity of useful plants and animals. Also, as Satoyama is a mosaic of various land use and provides various habitats including ecotone, unintentionally high biodiversity has been kept too.

第２の危機

The area of secondary forest : 77,000 km2

(it accounts for 21 % of total area of Japan) The area of agricultural use: 80,000 km2

43% of total area is human-impacted landscape.

The human-impacted landscape accounts for 49% of hot spots for animals (≥5 spp. of endangered species within 10 X 10 km)

And55% of hot spots for plants (≥5 spp. of endangered species within 10 X 10 km)

Satoyama landscape was the last habitat for Oriental Stork.

(Hyogo Prefecture, 1960)

A mosaic of Satoyama landscape including agricultural lands as well as sacred forests may have nourished Japanese sensibility to nature: to love the landscape as a miniature garden, to love a moderate mixture of nature and artifact, or to love delicate differences and changes in nature. Such a Japanese sensibility is represented as an art of gardening e.g. Katsura Rikyu Imperial Villa, which shows a harmonic combination of nature and artifact.

Katsura Rikyu Imperial Villa (17th Century): a mosaic of landscapes.

Katsura Rikyu Imperial Villa (17th Century): paddy field behind is an essential element.

Shugakuin Rikyu Imperial Villa: built after Katsura Rikyu

Shugakuin Rikyu Imperial Villa: a mosaic of landscapes including paddy filed

People used small twigs and leaves for manure.“Illustration Guide to Zenkouji Temple (1849)”

How people made Satoyama landscape?

“Everyday cutting grass”

A village of 100 families（ 25 acre of paddy fields ） needed:

1) 250 ~ 300 acre of woodland or grassland for fertilizing their paddy field

2) 60 ~ 75 acre of woodland for providing house -keeping fuel

Tokoro (1980)

Evergreen Board-leaved Forest

Increasing Pines

Bare Hill and Pine Forest

Pine Forest

Pine Forest and Evergreen Forest

Recession of Pine Forest

Before Heian~8th century

Heian, Kamakura8th century~

Muromachi, Edo,Meiji15th century~

1960’s

After 1970’s

Present

Era Social changes

Timber for construction

Fire woods and manure

Reforestation

Fuel revolution

Killed by nematodes

Vegetation changes in Kyoto Basin

Evergreen Board-leaved Forest

20

Stand of Pinus densiflora

「洛外図」 （部分　 1660 頃、作者不詳 )Grand View of Capital (ca.1660)

長坂峠付近での鷹狩り（「上杉本洛中洛外図」 1540 年代頃）Falconry (hunting by hawks) in Grand View in Capital (ca. 1540)

　薪採取（「上杉本　洛中洛外図」より）

Collecting fire wood

マツ葉を集める人々（「歴博甲本洛中洛外図」より）Collecting pine needles in Grand Views of Capital (1520-1530)

60

80

100

120

140

160

180

200

220

240

260

280

300

Depth (cm)

1310

920

290

Dates (cal yr B.P.)

20 40

Quercus subg. Cyclobalanopsis

20 40 60 80 100

(%)

Pinus Fagopyrum

+

Villagers in Midoro bought the right of grass harvest in Kibune (AD1599)

Foundation of Heian Capital (AD794)

Pottery kilns were made

(6-7th century)

Pine forest in Grand View in Capital (ca.

AD1660)

Bare hills and sparse pine trees in

Grand View in Capital (AD1530／1550)

Pollen analysis at Midoro-ga-ike,Kyoto basin

AD1660

ca

AD1030

AD640

Tricoloma matsutake (S. Ito et Imai) Sing. (Matsu-take: pine mushroom)forming mycorhiza with P. densiflora . None has succeed to cultivate it so far.

Pine mushroom is one of the Japanese delicacies in autumn, the smell is special. Scent of it is very relished in Japan and some other countries in East Asia, but it adds only bad odor for people in other region of the world. Pine mushroom is consumed only in East Asia.

1961 1975 1987 2004

清水山

知恩院

粟田山

清水寺

Enlargement of a evergreen broad-leaved species and decline of pine forests.

6.9ha 19.0ha 25.6ha 32.1ha

12,222ｔ（ 1941）

’50： 4,985t

’60： 1,707t

Domestic: 51 t

’30 ： 7,582t

Import:1,554 t (2007)

Production and import of pine mushroom

Tricoloma caligatum from Algeria

30

Stand of Cedrus libani in Algeria

31

Tricoloma magnivelare from North AmericaHost tree: Pinus spp., Tsuga spp.

Ecosystem services: benefits to mankind provided by ecosystem (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment)

Regulating

Climate

Pest

Flood

Detoxification

Provisioning

Food

Water

Fuel

Fiber

Chemical

Genetic resource

Cultural

Spiritual

Recreation

Aesthetic

Imagination

Education

Communal

Symbolism

SupportingSoil formation

Nutrient cycling

Primary production

Sustainability

A mosaic land use for obtaining various ecosystem services can be found not only in Japan, but also in other regions in the world. It is called as Satoyama in Japan, Maeul in Korea, Munoa in Sarawak (Iban), Malaysia and so on. Especially regions with subsistence agriculture based on paddy field have their own TEK to maintain and utilize various plant materials in sustainable ways, which lead to, more or less, the conservation of biodiversity intentionally and unintentionally.

A message from Satoyama studies is not a nostalgic one “going back to the past”, but a highly contemporary one: TEK in each region and area for obtaining ecosystem services in sustainable way gives us a hint for building new lifestyles of health and sustainability, and for establishing a compatible way of biodiversity conservation and utilization.

Acknowledgements

• Members of RIHN project “A new cultural and historical exploration into human-nature relations in the Japanese Archipelago”

• Colleagues in Sub-global Assessment of Satoyama-Satoumi in Japan (Institute of Advance Studies, United Nations University)