2018 Volume 24 Pages 38-57
This paper describes previous research and practices by which the author attempted to help create sustainable communities based on nearby nature. It mainly draws on ideas and action taken towards establishing good environmental governance in suburban ‘satoyama' A satoyama, a secondary natural environment found between mountain foothills and flat arable land, needs to be managed in order to maintain its ecosystem so that it is suitable for human use.
During the 1990s, the age of the environment and citizens, many people participated in voluntary activities in order to conserve the satoyama landscape. The movement was expected to reutilize remaining natural and cultural resources in satoyama through civic cooperation leading to the creation of new modern commons. However, since the 2000s, the power of civil activities has been absorbed by neo-liberal institutional reform in the shape of public-private partnerships. After the 2011 Japan earthquake, tsunami and Fukushima nuclear disaster, some people started their own businesses, using resources and spaces in suburban satoyama and began to provide new ecosystem services to the public. In effect, they have attempted to create an autonomous and alternative way of life. It is assumed that an ideal society can be planned ahead of this trend, and social and environmental activities are being carried out to this end
Japanese environmental sociologists tend to seek solutions to environmental problems based on regional social reality. This line of action is adaptable in the Heisei era, when the importance of governance has increased, and the research the author has been engaged in takes the same approach.
