Satoyama Lessons on Living in Community with Nature from Japan's Half-Wild Landscapes

• Reflection on how focused we can get on end goals, especially in economics and production, and how we tend to think of humans as being outside of a natural cycle. A satoyama-inspired approach would have us thinking about cycles instead of an end goal, and how humans are part of these cycles.
• Forest of Craft is a project to “rebuild a healthy and dynamic relationship between people and nature” through revitalization of forestry and craft.
• Urushi lacquer was once important for making wooden tableware but is falling out of widespread use. Forest of Craft engages people with the cultivation and harvesting of urushi, and finding contemporary uses for this sustainable product (including surfboards that don’t pollute the ocean with microplastics).
• When we regularly spend time in the forest, we are more invested in its well-being, and we notice problems (such as invasive species or plant diseases) and can intervene.

• Modern agriculture often pits itself against nature (weeds, pests, and weather) instead of working with nature.
• Rice is central to Japan's cultural identity, and defines many of  Japan’s satoyama landscapes.
• I hope to eventually grow rice on my own land in Japan, so I’ll go to Nara to learn a philosophy of natural farming. This “new” way of natural farming is connected to very old ways: life in ancient agricultural villages required an intimate understanding of the landscape.
• Akame Natural Farming School teaches us to cooperate instead of compete with weeds and insects, lessons we can apply to our landscapes and attitudes toward nature at home.

• We often try to wall nature out of our engineered spaces, creating these spaces exclusively for our own benefit rather than considering how they can benefit nonhumans as well.
• Dry stone walls, made by stacking natural stone without mortar, have shaped Japan’s terraced landscapes for centuries, making it possible for people to live and farm on mountainous land.
• The Dry Stone Walling School of Japan travels around Japan teaching time-tested techniques to anyone who’s interested (it’s possible to learn the basics in just two days).
• Unlike concrete walls, dry stone walls enhance biodiversity by becoming a habitat for plants, insects, amphibians, and birds.
• When we engineer our landscapes to benefit people, we can choose to benefit other living things too, becoming better neighbors to the creatures large and small that we share the landscape with.

• Cities represent human engineering on a large scale. Cities thrive when humans and the natural world share spaces, even in urban environments.
• The (private and public) stewardship of rivers in Kanazawa enhance the city’s rich culture and biodiversity.
• These rivers are important to the city’s famous silk dying, and also support a stunning variety of flora and fauna.
• UNU-IAS  documents how satoyama practices enhance the health and diversity of landscapes and cultures, and shares how these practices can be applied around the world.
• Satoyama can be found—and cultivated—even in urban environments.

• When we recognize our interdependence with nature, we begin to see how entwined our lives are with even the most microscopic of creatures.
• From cultivating rice to crafting wooden fermentation barrels, brewers at Terada Honke are constantly working with the local landscape. They say, “When humans live in harmony with nature, they create subtle differences in the environment that lead to expanding the diversity of living creatures.”
• Fermentation here is a collaboration with microorganisms from the air, the rice fields, and even wooden fermentation barrels. The philosophy of Terada Honke includes the notion that “we can find a way as civilized humans living today to also contribute to the endless efforts of maintaining the totality of nature in a way similar to such microorganisms.”
• Even when we can’t see them, there are living things all around us, with lessons for how we too might live.

• The final chapter will return to my home in Japan where I’m learning to forage and cultivate local plants, and then my hometown in Washington State.
• The indigenous people in my hometown, the Snoqualmie Tribe, have stewardship practices that resemble the ones I’ve seen in the Japanese satoyama. This way of relating to the land is not specific to Japan: we can find it or cultivate satoyama anywhere, and heal our relationship to nature.

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