In this disquisition, natural-rural fringe in Japanese mountainous area is focused for discussing the matter of importance to control the boundary between natural and rural area. Outline of planning method is also proposed. The point of dissection is to separate targeting areas from the view of relationships with local people, and make planes to handle agricultural land and forest land integrally. By giving the appropriate scale and shape to rural area, implementation of well-ordered land use and management in rural area are expected.

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Shiwa Town, in Iwate Prefecture, has been promoting recycling-oriented town development since 2000. This paper reviews the town's woody biomass utilization and forest management system and discusses the issue of developing sustainable forest management based on a sustainable woody biomass utilization system. Shiwa's experience reveals that forest management should be an important component of an overall local woody biomass utilization system. In addition, scale factors should be considered to allow diversified management and diversified management bodies that are appropriate at scales ranging from individuals to large enterprises. Third, local economic circulation (i.e., flows of cash or cash-equivalents within the community) should be managed to enhance sustainability. Finally, energy service companies (ESCO) will play a significant role in funding and coordinating the woody biomass utilization system.

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In satoyama forests that has been separated from rural production, its sustainability has been threatened with serious degradation for the last few decades. As a result, the deterioration of ecosystem services from the satoyama forests is feared. It is necessary to pay attention to acquirement ability from the ecosystem services for the control of the deterioration. The acquirement ability was defined as “the systems of the technics and thought of persons or society which can drew out meanings, values, and goods from the component of an ecosystem”. The type of the acquirement ability was classified, and the strategy for the recovery of the ability was discussed.

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The objective of this study is regional circulation of woody biomass. Taking account of the regional balance of supply and demand, this study aims to provide a utilization system to increase the use of woody biomass. The area designated for this study is Iwaki city and Kawauchi village of Fukushima Prefecture, Japan. The results are as follows. Judging from the supplied amount from the forest, approximately 40 times the amount of thermal energy from kerosene can be sustainably generated by using woody biomass. The pervasive eff ect on regional economy from the use of woody biomass can be estimated to be 13 hundred million yen in all and will make up 0.01% of Iwaki area's gross domestic production.

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Historically, fishermen have maintained and managed the coastal forest “UOTUKIRIN”, where plenty of fish gather for life and breeding, therefore fishermen plant trees at the coast and the upper reaches because nutrients flow. Women who live in fishing villages enjoy to tree-planting along with others in the region and children, and they think it is important for children to teach the importance of the environment. Good forest is important for both of agriculture and fisheries, it is necessary that fishermen and farmers do tree-planting activities together.

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It is necessary to reconsider about any problem and utilization on results of Census of Agriculture and Forestry in Japan. Because, it's possible to discover the tendency of an economic unit used for a base of the local community.

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This study aims to analyze the damaged schools' management situations and moving processes after the disaster. Many students are studying at other schools in neighboring towns or temporary school buildings due to the destruction of school buildings by the disaster. Furthermore, closing/merged of schools are happening in the whole region. The study covers all 27 dameged schools located in the coast of IWATE prefecture.
We conclude that these are burdens on children to travel long distance commuting to school and to get used to changing environment of their daily life. Place-making for after school is important, too.

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In this paper, I discuss the concept of a database that integrally manages soil component of each individual field, radioactive cesium level, producer information, and cesium content in rice to make the measures for the steps from production to inspection to link interactively, and discuss the way to manage both securing safety of Fukushima food and sustainable land use through detailed farming instruction on the producers.

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In this disquisition, first, the activity of Woody Biomass Iwate (WBI) after the Great East Japan Earthquake is described. Right after the disaster, WBI provided a bathhouse service with woodlog boilers in a refuge at Kirikiri, Otsuchi, Iwate. WBI also donated pellet stoves to three community centers after temporary housing was build. Second, WBI's policy proposal for wood biomass energy use is explained. There are fi ve basic concepts for autonomy and revitalization of local communities. The proposal concluded that we should give priority to a small-scale decentralized system for thermal utilization which has more ripple eff ects to the regions than a large-scale intensive power generation by woody biomass energy.

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The issues of human-wildlife conflict have been nationwide expanding because distribution and population of pest species has been increased. Recently, Wildlife Damage has become a serious human-wildlife issues not only in rural area but also in suburban area. In this paper, we examine public attitude corresponded to damage risk by Japanese macaques in suburban area, Fujiyoshida city and Fujikawaguchiko town, Yamanashi prefecture. In the investigation area, wildlife damage caused by wild macaques of the Yoshida troop is very serious. We conducted 1) damage risk estimation and 2) questionnaire survey to evaluate public attitude toward damage perception, method to prevent damage and concerning to conduct countermeasures, then compared public attitude among damage risk stages. The questionnaire survey was conducted 1,549 residents located within 300m from forest edge (valid response: 643). As a result, damage perception showed similar trend to damage risk, so approximately 70 percent of residents into high risk area was thought damage by macaques has been more serious. Spatial distribution of crop damage was more expanded than that of household damage. Positive and negative attitude toward method to prevent damage by monkeys was coexisted in same area, excluded high risk region. Therefore, we conclude that residents' cooperation and active action to prevent damage is difficult because of their variance attitude and coexisted variance cultivation scale, so we propose that participation of education department are needed to introduce the public the realities of damage prevention.

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In recent years, public hospitals in Japan's rural areas, which are the main providers of medical care in rural areas, have been experiencing worsening financial conditions. In response, in 2007, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications issued public hospital reform guidelines to local municipalities, requesting that they improve public hospital management as quickly as possible. Because the worsening fi nancial position of public hospitals is linked to their special organizational structure of strong ties with local governments, the guidelines urged making hospitals managerially independent from municipalities. However, in rural areas that would be especially strongly affected by the guidelines, the issue of medical care is an administrative issue of high public interest, and public hospitals and municipalities are linked inseparably. Consequently, whether the independence of public hospitals from municipalities as proposed by the guidelines is suitable for rural areas persists as an important research subject.
This study, which was conducted to clarify management improvement measures for public hospitals in rural areas and benefi cial governance structures necessary to enable such measures, examined Oguni-Town in Yamagata Prefecture, which improved management of public hospitals without making them independent from municipalities. Measures adopted and implemented by the Oguni public hospital during 2008.2011, including the implementation of a change in the classification of hospital beds, promotion of medical examinations, and introduction of generic drugs, raised medical practice income and contributed to the improvement of management. These measures were developed through cooperation and the exchange of ideas among medical personnel of various specialties and local government officials. Such collaboration is a method that has been emphasized by Oguni-Town throughout its town planning activities. Through the use of common methods, administrative support for public hospital reform was obtained readily. Because the protection of medical care in rural areas is an important part of community building, it can be argued that maintaining a close relation between medical care providers and the community is important.

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