Abstract
The improvement of rural environment was oriented toward raising the level of living conditions for rural inhabitants after the high economic growth since 1970’s. The economic growth caused some issues such as the surplus of farm products, the air and water pollutions, heavy traffics on roads, and nature destructions in rural areas. And these issues brought about the dirtiness and the ugliness to the rural landscape.
The movement for beautification of rural environment has risen since 1980, affected by the German movement to “make our village beautiful”. Two steps can be processed in the movement of environmental beautification. The first step is to “acquire beauty of life” which can be display for the harmonization of environmental elements to get rid of such issues, and the second one is to “create new beauty” which can bring up to love to the community.
I illustrate the activities for beautification movement in a case study of Niiyama Shuraku of Kanzaki Town in Saga Prefecture. The movement of making beautiful environment started in order to protect going to school of village children from traffic accidents by the women group at first. Next, it grew up to the activity for creating beauty of their community. Finally it has developed to bring up the love for their own homeland.
