| 4. Kutzuki Village: Reworking of Community Values and Opportunities |
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| Monday, 17 August 2009 | |||||||||||
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The
challenge is to learn from contrasting situations in Asia as to the
social and environmental strategies for engaging communities. In
ecosystems throughout Asia, socially acceptable systems are sought
where governments were previously more focused on commercial and
private rights. There is a long term need to engage communities and
support them in building their capacity to manage resources.
 Relations in Community and Security
There are now people's organizations and non-government organizations whose effort is to contribute to the revival of community relations in Japan society. The general premise that all public issues are to be handed to government - and government alone - is now changing. Efforts to re-establish neighborhoods or local communities provoke us to think: what makes for a local, geographic community? The socio-cultural familiarity and psychological identity of community help people address concerns for which they are otherwise ill-equipped. Active communities reduce dependence upon government services that cannot fulfill individual needs.
When the ward government in Yokohama suburbs hosted an event to tend the community woodlots, they received such an overwhelming number of applications that they had to turn some people down. Every other weekend or so, the ward forestry division and a local NGO facilitated groups of about 30 or more in learning and taking part in thinning, brush-cutting, and planning. Most of the participants were in their fifties, and some in their forties. Their motives for participating vary:
These are not isolated area activities, according to the MAFF survey, and the number of entities tending forests through such "forest volunteering work" has increased from 277 in 1997 to 1165 in 2003.
Many people seek to live around the Yokahama area not as in a dormitory town but as satoyama, a place to come home to and relate with. People today want to care for the local forest and make friends; create their own satoyama or ‘home area' as a semi-urban community. Neighbours coming together strengthens local identity and creates a place to be proud of such relations may be facilitated but not determined by government, being the responsibility of people to strengthen social coherence and well-being.
How does a community invigorate and re-form, form a new its self identity? Many may feel that areas of society have lost the means or the social context of relations to utilize their capacity to build or sustain a sense of local familiarity and larger-than-family neighborhood. Many old communities know the value of a life in relation to neighbors and environment but do not at this stage in their lives have either the energy or the capacity to invigorate. How can such communities be strengthened?
Just to take a rural Japanese setting, while trying to avoid running the risk of inadequate understanding and depth of context, we may look as the watershed of Lake Biwa and related forest communities. The lake is a hydrological engineering feat of water supply, flood control and environmental management. Lake Biwa has a history of flooding due to heavy rains; 58 thousand households were flooded in 1896 and the Yodo River the outlet thorough Osaka city flooded on average one every 6 years due to typhoons. The 25 cities of that area take their water from this river. There is extensive local tourism developing around the lake and over a hundred points of interest. Most of the activities focus on the cities of the east and south. But what of the upland communities where those from the cities may drive by the market at the weekend, or venture for a seasonal skiing trip? Now with the establishment of Takashima as a city on the western shores there is a greater opportunity for incorporating some of the lesser populated areas into more focused social planning of the area and sustaining community life. Kutsuki Village
Residents old and new of Kutsuki village in the western hills are initiating different activities. Organic vegetable production supplies the local market and beyond. There are several different networks of those who cut fuelwood, make charcoal and design to better manage the plantations. Thoughts of even reviving the old green manure practices by keeping horses for riding and developing other amenities for tourism are considered. People have web pages and take photographs of the seasonal beauty of the area encouraging others to reflect on the meaning of life; researchers come to document the traditions and changes and students to learn forest practices. People are sitting it out in the hopes others will join and taking any opportunity to further community life. As yet there is not enough commitment for the community to see a long-term future.
The questions are difficult to even pose. The rural to urban migration that give greater access and levels of greater security or opportunity, risk being offset by the benefits and reduced physical hard work give people a better life. But then again the question ‘what is a better life?' though few take it up. Environmentally the area may be better off with people out of it, some might say more pristine, yet it has been the area of great human activity to which the plantations attest. The old Asahi Shimbun forest estate was here but is no longer productive. There are those who value the traditional way of life and want to keep it alive, not from a historical perspective, but a contemporary value of people living with greater connectivity and reduced urban stress. It may well be seen as a way of life that others in the future would like to fall back on, and of course the food diversity and freshness from the soil rather than refrigerator is always appreciated.
Forests in Japan are now in search of people who are willing to put in their personal time and resources; legal ownership or tenure is not necessarily the topic of debate as in other countries. The state, corporate or public forests are generally open to community participation. It is not financially viable for government to maintain let alone produce wood from the plantations. This is a different quandary from those of poorer country neighbors, but nonetheless soul searching and a source of anxiety for many. Now the question is what is the extent of socio-cultural rebuilding that can go on?
One picture comes to mind, Kubo san's persimmon tree half picked with a stepladder underneath, the higher branches unreachable. Kubo san is over eighty and looks after her garden and some of the elderly neighbors, while having time to prepare the twenty-four fresh or preserved vegetables in a multiplicity of ways for her breakfast visitors. Who will take over from her and so many senior people in these communities?
Initial Learnings Just taking this example of Kutsuki community there are some very initial thoughts on community values can be shared:
History
tells people of their cultural roots that gives them strength,
identity and way of living that governments have in the past ignored.
Increasingly there is awareness and recognition of community as a
‘new institution;' its value and the need to support it, but this
may come too late for such communities that have lost their human
resources. As Japanese society engages in these difficulties and
internalizes these concerns in its own urban and rural cultures it
lends greater assurance that how it is listening and acting
internationally will be all the more beneficial.
Kutsuki Community Context
Community as Center When we look for the generic values found in many traditional cultures across the margins of Asia we find many commonalities and that these are a major source of renewal for those in the modern global daily exchange. We understand community relations as the center of belonging in an area resource plans become an obvious basis for action. We are driven to ask questions about basic human security and self identity. Self identity is at the actual center but on a daily basis human security and community relations are more clearly a basis for direct objective action. From this grows the ability for governance and economic sustainability. In turn the value of ecological services is acknowledged along with the broader quality of life. These community relations are generally not formal institutions yet have global impact. These generic relations are values found in many traditional communities that today see a more equitable relation with the national and global cultures. Where there is little opportunity of change in situations of poverty compounded with a sense of denied opportunities this can generate armed conflict in different parts of Asia. Reflections and points of comparison across many traditional communities reflect the same need for relations though in a very diverse world. 
Community Relations & Forest Plans If we start to look at community management of resources there are the basic agreements and understanding that have been established over time. There are however the pressures forcing change at any one time and the adjusting to the change. Many of these would-be concerns have been long overtaken by the fact of corporate withdrawal as with Asahi, the out migration of youth and then stretch in connectivity within the area and the need for family and elderly care. Daily social relations and activities are what people live by and judge the decisions they have to make, which may be very different from the now extensive cypress and cedar forests that surround them. Self Identity and Human Spirit Our sense of context and confirmation is deepest in our community and is not simply sought through media or entertainment. Organizing for religious events is central to connecting and binding of the community; the Shinto shrine binds the memories of people and place. The community story and sense of belonging and knowing the landscape gives an enduring sense of meaning. Whatever my circumstances "where I am in life" is always an occasion for acceptance and for spiritual gratitude. Some of the community questions about these six themes are hear through the region: Human Security There are many areas in the Region where communities live in fear and are the subject of armed aggression or are caught between national and apposing forces. Women and children, also the men sometimes are forced to take sides, suffer for generations as there is little attention to establishing lasting peace. All continue to suffer under the lack basic needs and services. Millennium Development Goals are necessary broader agenda for accountability and attention, but unless there is social protection and attention to the underlying factors MDGs will not meet the mark. The primary need for peace and trust followed by the need for the right to stay and access resources where a community traditionally lived, access to food and stable pricing are basic to the basics. Dialogue, compromise and negotiation are often most lacking in marginal areas as well as accompaniment of people in their self assertion of needs and finding of responses. While human security in Japan may be more of the continuity of a culture and way of life in a given landscape this does reflect a sense of concern seen in more drastic settings of the Region. Governance Communities need the organization and opportunity to engage government and women need far greater representation in this if community needs are to be met. The history of nationalization and privatization of resources has to work with the cultural landscape and community integrity. The role of plantations and plantation species has to be adapted by engaging a more integrated social wellbeing and environmental management. Economics Economic sustainability of communities cannot simply be determined by a global economy that financially cannot even save itself and the accountability must broaden to meet the margins. Raw and processed wood and non-wood products results in the lowest prices as communities in these contexts often do not have basic services, the education and negotiation skills to establish a better deal. At the same time quantity and quality standards and certification must be part of the social and environmental accountability along with greater local industry capacity and access and development of markets. Ecological Services Ecological services often flow from the margins of society and are not paid for until over stressed or lost: water source & flood management, biodiversity, tourism, carbon sequestration. Local communities play a major role in maintaining these services without compensation. The ex situ impact is benefiting others down stream. The in situ community services save government detailed intervention and provides neighbourhood care, self employment, sense of stewardship.
Considerations Some basic summary points in this reflection might be:
Challenges Questions we might ask ourselves in the context of the work we do:
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