In the traditional “satoyama” landscape of Japan, different types of land use were arranged in circles around a village. Cultivated areas formed the innermost circle around the village, followed by open secondary forests and grasslands, and finally mountain forests. For example, Moriyama in Otsu City at the west of Lake Biwa, land use was closely linked to the characteristics of the natural and social conditions in the late Meiji period. Secondary forests were mainly used for the production of firewood and brushwood. Several types of grasses were important natural resources and were used as organic fertilizer for paddies or as feed for cattle. Land-use forms were linked both to the daily life of individual residents and to the social relationships maintained within the community. The purposes of land use include; daily provisions and fuel; materials for agriculture, forestry, and daily life; and supplies for unexpected or exceptionally large expenses, and for emergency use. In that way, the natural resources could be sustainably used. People until the early Showa period made sure that local natural resources were not depleted. They created a system that regulated the times and periods when it was allowed to harvest the plants. In that way, the natural resources could be sustainably used. Satoyama landscapes with such regular land-use patterns have been systematically managed by the community.

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Various kinds of knowledge are hiding in scenes such as farming, daily life, resource management, organizational activities etc. in rural areas. A huge amount of tacit knowledge has been dispersing silently by the retirements of elderly persons. Recently, the importance of local knowledge came to be recognized widely among the people. Because the local knowledge is intangible, it is still a difficult problem to identify it. In this article, we try to grasp the knowledge structure on farm pond management using questionnaire survey data with a clue of the previous researches that structured the tacit knowledge in the field of business management. Based on the difference of knowledge possession among the statuses in irrigation associations, we discuss a problem of intergenerational transfer of the knowledge.

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In Japan, people's concern is increasing after the earthquake disaster of 3.11 about the problem of energy supply. And then, people are thinking that their life style should be improved. Now, a large-scale saw mill is going to serve as a organizer of forest management, and it is going to attain local circulation of forest resources for woody biomass energy. Creating many employments are also assumed in that process. A main subject discusses the meaning, after introducing such a measure.

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Sumitomo Forestry Co., Ltd. has newly developed “The forest resource inventory and management system”, and it was introduced into the forestry cooperative in Shimokawa-cho, Hokkaido, Japan. The system uses simultaneously airborne LIDAR (Laser Imaging Detection and Ranging) and aerial photographs. This system achieves effi cient forest resource management, and is expected to develop the forestry and forest-products business in Shimokawa-cho.

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With the development of ICT technology, Internet will play a vital role in the rapidly growing rural China. Internet is capable to delivers information to rural residents at anytime and anywhere. However, user acceptance of Internet is an important problem to the successful implementation of Internet development. Thus, there is a need to study the factors that affect user intention to use Internet, based on the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT). In this study, a questionnaire survey of the residents of three villages in Hubei province of China has been carried out. The results indicate that performance expectancy, social influence, facilitating conditions, and enjoyment expectancy of learning have significant effects on the behavioral intention to use Internet. In addition, uneasiness of learning also influence the behavior of users. We also found that gender differences moderate the effect of facilitating conditions on Internet usage intention; age differences moderate the effects of performance expectancy and facilitating conditions on Internet usage intention; occupation differences moderate the effect of performance expectancy on Internet usage intention.

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[in Japanese]

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