Abstract
This study reveals the logic of the temporary limits a landowners' organization placed on its members' own property rights for the preservation of the forest and to protect their own livelihoods.
The case area is located in the suburb of a city, where development pressure is extremely high. Generally, landowners do not cooperate with nature regeneration projects and nature conservation activities in such areas. However, the landowners' organization in the case area agreed to limit its members' own property rights, and conditionally agreed to such a project.
The landowners' organization agreed to limit property rights based on the logic of reestablishing social order in the local community. In the case area, dioxin contamination in the ‘90s created economic and psychological gaps between landowners who leased or sold their properties to industrial waste disposal companies, who were responsible for the dioxin problems, and those who did not. As a group, the landowners’ organization decided to conditionally agree to limit its members' property rights, because the proposed project potentially reduced the gaps among them.
As the analysis of this case demonstrates, the local community's “rebuilding of order” is rooted in a motivation to reduce gaps between members of the landowners. The landowners attempted to personally restrict their own property rights for the sake of the protection of their own livelihoods and the forest in the area.
