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Cultural service provided by Satoyama landscape
and its role for the conservation of biodiversity
Takakazu YUMOTO
Research Institute for Humanity and Nature (RIHN)
Satoyama (in Japanese) ： (literally) village mountain
=secondary forests nearby human settlements.
Satoyama： a heavily human-impacted ecosystem which people
have been repeatedly used, for harvesting firewood, making
charcoals, collecting litter and leaved-branches for manure,
obtaining wild plants and fungi for foods for several hundreds
years.
Satoyama: an ecosystem which has been modified by human being
for the purpose of obtaining provisioning services in sustainable
ways.
Satoyama connotes not only the landscape itself, but also traditional
ecological knowledge (TEK) for obtaining sustainable ecosystem
service.
Satoyama landscape: a traditional rural landscape in Japan
(not only secondary forest, but also including farmlands)
Satoyama landscape is characterized by a mosaic of different land
uses to obtain different types of ecosystem services. In the
Japanese Archipelago, paddy field cultivation began in the small
basin, alluvial fan and fluvial terrace, not in large delta. Owing to
tiny and fragmented topographic areas, monoculture has not
developed until recently.
As Satoyama provides various materials, people have intentionally
kept high diversity of useful plants and animals. Also, as Satoyama
is a mosaic of various land use and provides various habitats
including ecotone, unintentionally high biodiversity has been kept
too.
The area of secondary forest : 77,000 km2
(it accounts for 21 % of total area of Japan)
The area of agricultural use: 80,000 km2
43% of total area is human-impacted landscape.
第２の危機
The human-impacted landscape accounts for
49% of hot spots for animals
(≥5 spp. of endangered species within 10 X 10 km)
And
55% of hot spots for plants
(≥5 spp. of endangered species within 10 X 10 km)
(Hyogo Prefecture, 1960)
Satoyama landscape was the last habitat for Oriental Stork.
A mosaic of Satoyama landscape including agricultural lands as
well as sacred forests may have nourished Japanese sensibility to
nature: to love the landscape as a miniature garden, to love a
moderate mixture of nature and artifact, or to love delicate
differences and changes in nature. Such a Japanese sensibility is
represented as an art of gardening e.g. Katsura Rikyu Imperial
Villa, which shows a harmonic combination of nature and artifact.
Katsura Rikyu Imperial Villa (17th Century):
a mosaic of landscapes.
Katsura Rikyu Imperial Villa (17th Century):
paddy field behind is an essential element.
Shugakuin Rikyu Imperial Villa: built after Katsura Rikyu
Shugakuin Rikyu Imperial Villa: a mosaic of landscapes
including paddy filed
How people made Satoyama landscape?
People used small twigs and leaves for manure.
“Illustration Guide to Zenkouji Temple (1849)”
A village of 100 families
（25 acre of paddy fields）
needed:
1) 250 ~ 300 acre of woodland
or grassland for fertilizing
their paddy field
2) 60 ~ 75 acre of woodland for
providing house -keeping fuel
Tokoro (1980)
“Everyday cutting grass”
Era
Vegetation changes in Kyoto Basin
Before Heian
~8th century
Evergreen Board-leaved Forest
Heian, Kamakura
8th century~
Increasing Pines
Muromachi, Edo,
Meiji
15th century~
Bare Hill and Pine Forest
1960’s
Social changes
Timber for construction
Fire woods and manure
Reforestation
Pine Forest
Fuel revolution
Pine Forest and Evergreen Forest
After 1970’s
Present
Recession of Pine Forest
Evergreen Board-leaved Forest
Killed by nematodes
Stand of Pinus densiflora
20
「洛外図」 （部分 1660頃、作者不詳) Grand View of Capital (ca.1660)
長坂峠付近での鷹狩り（「上杉本洛中洛外図」 1540年代頃）
Falconry (hunting by hawks) in Grand View in Capital (ca. 1540)
Collecting fire
wood
薪採取（「上杉本
洛中洛外図」より）
マツ葉を集める人々（「歴博甲本洛中洛外図」より）
Collecting pine needles in Grand Views of Capital (1520-1530)
is
op
s
la
n
ob
a
B.
(c
P.
m
)
ue
)
rc
us
su
bg
Pi
nu
.C
s
yc
l
py
ru
m
Q
Fa
go
th
ep
D
D
at
es
(c
al
yr
Pollen analysis at Midoro-ga-ike,
Kyoto basin
60
Villagers in Midoro bought the right of
grass harvest in Kibune (AD1599)
80
100
120
Bare hills and sparse pine trees in
Grand View in Capital (AD1530／1550)
140
ca
160
AD1660
290 180
920
AD1030
Pine forest in Grand View in Capital (ca.
AD1660)
+
200
220
240
Foundation of Heian Capital
(AD794)
1310 260
AD640
280
300
20 40
20 40 60 80 100
(%)
Pottery kilns were made
(6-7th century)
Tricoloma matsutake (S. Ito et Imai) Sing. (Matsu-take: pine mushroom)
forming mycorhiza with P. densiflora .
None has succeed to cultivate it so far.
Pine mushroom is one of the Japanese delicacies in autumn, the smell
is special. Scent of it is very relished in Japan and some other
countries in East Asia, but it adds only bad odor for people in other
region of the world. Pine mushroom is consumed only in East Asia.
Enlargement of a evergreen broad-leaved species and
decline of pine forests.
1961
1975
1987
2004
知恩院
粟田山
清水寺
清水山
6.9ha
19.0ha
25.6ha
32.1ha
12,222ｔ（1941）
’30 ：7,582t
’50：4,985t
Import:1,554 t (2007)
’60：1,707t
Domestic: 51 t
Production and import of pine mushroom
Tricoloma caligatum from Algeria
Stand of Cedrus libani in Algeria
30
Tricoloma magnivelare from North America
Host tree: Pinus spp., Tsuga spp.
31
Ecosystem services: benefits to mankind provided
by ecosystem (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment)
Provisioning
Regulating
Cultural
Food
Climate
Spiritual
Water
Pest
Recreation
Fuel
Flood
Aesthetic
Fiber
Chemical
Genetic resource
Detoxification
Sustainability
Imagination
Education
Communal
Symbolism
Supporting
Soil formation
Nutrient cycling
Primary production
A mosaic land use for obtaining various ecosystem services can be
found not only in Japan, but also in other regions in the world. It
is called as Satoyama in Japan, Maeul in Korea, Munoa in
Sarawak (Iban), Malaysia and so on. Especially regions with
subsistence agriculture based on paddy field have their own TEK
to maintain and utilize various plant materials in sustainable ways,
which lead to, more or less, the conservation of biodiversity
intentionally and unintentionally.
A message from Satoyama studies is not a nostalgic one “going back
to the past”, but a highly contemporary one: TEK in each region
and area for obtaining ecosystem services in sustainable way gives
us a hint for building new lifestyles of health and sustainability, and
for establishing a compatible way of biodiversity conservation and
utilization.
Acknowledgements
• Members of RIHN project “A new cultural
and historical exploration into human-nature
relations in the Japanese Archipelago”
• Colleagues in Sub-global Assessment of
Satoyama-Satoumi in Japan (Institute of
Advance Studies, United Nations University)