Abstract
A hundred years ago, almost all Japanese rural communities had common lands, which played an important part in rural activities. The area of these common lands has been reduced since the Meiji era when the Japanese Government carried out a policy which attempted to transfer the right of common to municipalities. But we can find many rural communities which have common properties identical with common lands. Zaisan-ku, a kind of the management organization for public estates, was established to maintain common lands substantially under the loose control of municipalities which contain the rural communities.
These common lands, most of which are forest-lands, are not used effectively now, because of the spread of chemical fertilizer and because of decreasing demand for charcoal and firewood by energy revolution. Some rural communities, however, use effectively their common lands and make certain profits. In this paper the author examines and explains the land uses of common lands of two rural communities, Kashiwabara and Yugawa, as typical cases of modern type of land use of common lands.
Kashiwabara and Yugawa, located at the foot of Mt. Tateshina, Nagano Prefecture, Central Japan, have vast common lands of grass managed by each community. In Kashiwabara and Yugawa, each common land has been maintained as the property of Zaisan-ku, and has provided spaces for the activities of tourist industries. This is a distinctive characteristic of the common lands of these communities.
Kashiwabara Zaisan-ku gains big returns by renting its land to resort hotels and managing rental boats on Lake Shirakaba. On the other hand, although Yugawa Zaisan-ku once kept resort hotels and managed the rental land to individual resort villas, it sold an important part of its lands in 1960. Now, it keeps only rental lands to some tourist enterprises. One object of this paper is to explain the process of land use change in the common lands of the two communities, which include highly developed land by tourist industries. And another object is to consider problems relating to the system of Zaisan-ku. The results are as follows;
1. Most of the common lands of Kashiwabara and Yugawa were forest-lands, and the farmers depended heavily on them as the source of green mature, charcoal, and firewood for domestic use until the 1950 s. The people began to make aff orestation of larch trees on these common lands in the 1950 s. The expense of the aff orestation was payed by the income from the management of tourism.
2. The occupational structure of this region has been changed remarkablly since the 1960 s. About a half of farmers are engaged in tourism. This was caused by the fact that the area surrounding Lake Shirakaba and Tateshina Highland turned into a famous resort zone.
3. A part of the common lands of Yugawa was sold to an tour enterprise in 1960, and that part is a main active resort area now. And other parts of the common lands were divided among residents who had come from Yugawa Settlement, and resided in Tateshina Highland.
4. On the other hand, the people of Kashiwabara maintains their common lands as the form of Zaisan-ku, and gain a periodical income by the management of rental lands and rental boats. This income is used for raising the standard of living of the community.
5. The Kashiwabara Zaisan-ku has following problems. One is that workers are in short supply as office work increases. Second is that Chino City, the municipal authority, is likely to control the management of Zaisan-ku more strongly because the Kashiwabara Zaisan-ku which have some public characters gains enormous income.
