In Japan, there are many examples of the development of rural sustainability. From them, we investigate the typical regeneration policy and practice of Kamikatsu-cho in Tokushima Prefecture. As the result of it, we know the development of rural sustainability depend on the idea of sustained maximum yield but also cultural capital and industrial experiment for regeneration of destroyed rural areas. Though these ideas were born in 1870 by J.Ruskin in the Victorian Age, we have the opportunity for industrial experiment and rural sustainability by the new technologies that support decentralized industry and community business like as information technology etc. in contemporary industrial society.
In the development of rural sustainability, we find the importance of public domain that depend on the intrinsic cultural tradition and customs that work as intangible cultural capital and many kinds of tangible ones like as cultural heritage, architecture, locations, sites and art works. These cultural capitals are the origin of holding fascination or amenity in the rural areas and promote the rural sustainability by the creative education opportunity for the next generation.

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This paper aims to examine sustainable development in rural areas from the point of view of culture and creative industries. Through expansion of civil engineering since the 1980s, the finance of rural areas has become heavily dependent on national public finance. Income from agriculture has been only around 20% of all income in rural areas since the 1980s. Besides, the agricultural budget has become dependent on public finance. For example, the agricultural budget from national public finance was only 9% of all agricultural production in the 1960s, while it was 28% of agricultural production in the 1970s, and it became around 50% in the 1980s.
Therefore, it is a very important issue to transform civic engineering in rural areas as well as to reform agriculture itself. Traditional research rather focuses on manifold functions of agriculture and discusses what policy should be in agriculture itself.
Another approach is to focus on the distribution process and to recommend developing alternative industries relating to processing and distributing agricultural products which produce added value. Added value seems to be necessary for financial dependency of agricultural areas.
However, I will discuss transformation of civil engineering in rural areas focusing on creative industries. Creative industries including tourism and vacation were rather neglected in traditional research in Japan. However, a small business producing beautiful leaves for cooking in Kamikatsu-Cho in Tokushima prefecture is a good example of a successful small creative business in an agriculture area.
More generally, I will examine the role of culture for sustainable development in rural areas. Culture seems to play an important role for development not only in developed countries but also in developing countries. Culture has the potential to encourage people and their ability. Besides, cultural landscape and cultural heritage compose amenities which breed people's abilities and new businesses. For example, designation as cultural landscape relating to traditional tea production might raise the value of tea in an area. To rethink the role of culture in rural areas, I will criticize the definition of culture in traditional rural research and will discuss it from the point of view of network function.

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We have launched a new research and education project at Hitotsubashi University on ‘Natural Resource-based Economies (NRE)’ sponsored by the Norinchukin Bank scince the fiscal year of 2009. The project name is ‘Policy Research for Sustainable Development of the Natural Resource-based Industries and Communities’. In the project we propose to understand so-called ‘primary industries’ such as agriculture and rural communities which are mainly dependent on ‘primary industries’ as the most important one of NRE. The NRE are supported by various kinds of the natural ecosystem services.
According to the above theoretical framework of NER concept, this article examines three basic issues ( 1) the issue of policy priority for agriculture and rural communities, 2) the issue of agricultural land use and management of rural resources, 3) the issue of human resources and their capacity building for agriculture and rural communities) in focussing the recent situation of Japan in order to secure the rural sustainability in the 21th century.

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This paper focuses on a case of set-net fishery by Niizaki Fishermen's Cooperative, reorganized de facto in 2004 to Niizaki Suisan, Ltd. at Nii district, Ine town, Kyoto Prefecture, Japan in the postwar period. It is illustrated that the fishery commons could cope with the changes of the external factors, that is, prices of fish and materials to fish on the one hand, and resource stock on the other, changing the fisheries in use. However, the fishery faces the decrease of the employee, seemingly leading to discontinue itself. This situation reveals the difficulty in achieving the village / rural sustainability on the aspect of population, neither of resource condition nor economic performance.

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The paper begins with the recognition that modern society is not sustained, and considers that sustainability of a village is related to residences in it. In this paper, I consider that the residence is related to environment, community and culture in the area of Noto Peninsula destroyed by earthquake. And I insist on sustainability of residence is related to the sustainability in a village.
It is predicted that many villages will collapse, which is called survival crises. But many villages are still living now. In this paper, I try to reveal the internal logic of sustainable development in rural, and how to construct a planning theory based on it becomes a problem in future. I think that Inherit and carry forward value in aspect of environment, social, and culture is the main reason for sustainable living, which decide on sustainable development in rural area. Planning is a subject which can create value, and it is also necessary to reconfirm that it is a normative science.

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At the symposium held last year, the author stressed the need to establish a sustainable system for farmland based on the idea of “protecting regions by living and doing businesses locally”.
This report looks at organizations established in recent years that are engaged in regional activities in Kyoto. These types of regional cooperative organizations are seen as very effective, and the report introduces project systems currently being studied by Kyoto prefecture. Additional consideration was paid to public policy investigations into the process of creating social capital and rural sustainability.

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