Thinning (BMI) in Niiharu

Every activity day morning, the volunteers of Lovers of Niiharu Citizen Forest gather at Ikebuchi Hiroba where the to-do list of the day is on display in a small blackboard. Using the Niiharu Conservation and Management Plan 新治保全管理計画and considering the discussions at the Niiharu Council 新治保全管理協議会, the weekly menu is decided by the annually elected executive members of the Lovers. The first thing each volunteer should do when we arrive at Ikebuchi Hiroba is, to write our name in the attendee list (for insurance purpose), and to choose which activity we are going to do out of the list. No order or request will be issued from anybody. If you find no activity is attractive, you can leave the place without saying goodbye. (Well, no one would do so, after venturing into the Forest this far.) The regular activity in the list is “Patrol.” When we patrol, we pick up trashes along the trekking roads, and check if the routes are safe for visitors. Volunteers are encouraged to join a patrol group once in 3 months at least, and prepare a written report about the point where we find a work is necessary. The executive board collects the information and plans the next activity to list in the menu. As Lovers meet at least once in a week and the information of morning patrol can be utilized in the afternoon in some cases, the maintenance work of the trekking road in Niiharu is very quick and probably more efficient than reporting the problem to the City. One thing the lecturers of the Forest Volunteering 101 emphasized last fall was the power of volunteers who could take care of the forest in a careful and effective way. Patrolling and maintaining the trekking route is one example for that. One way to maintain the road safe is to remove protruding branches and unstable trees close to the public access. The leader of the Lovers of Niiharu Citizen Forest, Mr. Ohkawa, emphasizes every morning meeting of an activity day that careful pruning and thinning along the trekking roads are the priority in order to keep the Forest safe.

Plat du jour

We do “Radio Work Out” every time before starting forestry.

Patrolling

According to Niiharu Conservation and Management Plan, winter is the best time to thin trees. Vegetation is dormant so that cutting gives the forest the least stress. Hence, the volunteers for Lovers of Niiharu Forest are very busy from December to February with chainsaws. The Lovers for Niiharu has (really) an army of chainsaw wielding amateurs. In Japan, it is illegal to operate chainsaws without license whose basic level requires more than 10 hours of lectures and labs + the final exam presided by accredited organizations at the cost of min 12,000 yen. Though the Lovers organization subsidizes the cost partially (“thank you Green Tax!”), acquiring and advancing the skill is not at all cheap. The existence of chainsaw troop is a proof how much the volunteers are enthusiastic ... of course for improving the biodiversity in our city, not just to cut trees! ;)

Our dear chainsaws …

After joining the Lovers a couple of months ago, I’ve already witnessed many thinning. Last month, I’ve posted my experience during the Winter Kids’ Festival in a bamboo forests in Mukaiyama, near C-2 and C-3. Mukaiyama is in Zone A whose mission is to provide educational experience for traditional co-habitation of nature and humans in Japan. So, the forest was chosen for kids’ playground. Yeah, it was a kind of cute job, but it made a serious sense. About 20 groups of kids cut one bamboo each in about 5,000 m² forest. According to the Plan, the optimal distribution of bamboos is one tree per approx. 4 m² so that that this particular bamboo forest can have 1,250 bamboos. 20 bamboos thinned during the Festival are about 2% of the optimal number. Too little? Well, the festival was on the first Sunday of February, and the optimal thinning season for bamboos is December and January. Unlike the other kinds of forest, bamboos require annual thinning and the Lovers already did some work beforehand this season. Actually the kids provided a final touch for the annual job.

Every hand counts!

Lovers of Niiharu thin and prune in the Forest according to the Niiharu Plan. The reason of the work is not contained simply to restore the Satoyama forest. A-6 point is called Maruyama which is in Zone A whose mission defined in the Plan is to popularize Satoyama concept. It was once a garden of Mr. Okutsu who installed many fun things in the area including his own hand-curved sculpture. The place is in the middle of the popular promenade connecting Ikebuchi Hiroba 池ぶち広場 (A-7) and Miharashi Hiroba みはらし広場 (A-4). i.e. Many people come. Probably unintentionally, Mr. Okutsu left several wires connecting trees in the area. Now the trees in Maruyama are large and the wires were dangerously pulling the trees each other at a very high place. Luckily, the trees in Maruyama are broad-leaved trees that requires once in 10-15 years coppicing. So, this year Lovers volunteers cut these trunks with wires before a serious incident happens.

Maruyama with the woodwork
by the late Mr. Okutsu

Before coppicing.
The trunks with blue tape were coppiced
for the safety of visitors.

In February, the volunteers pruned the plum boughs in an orchard in Mukaiyama that can be admired from the Okutsu House. Unlike peach, cherry or almond, plums have branches that grow towards the trunk, which creates geometrical beauty. Moreover, plum is so vigorous that its branches shoot out a lot in every spring and summer. Messing the timing and volume of pruning, we’ll have a sorry plum tree with jumbled branches with few flowers and fruits. Annual pruning season for plums is after the rainy season, in July, when we should cut the branches aggressively by leaving about 10 pencil-sized new branches from a bough. Next spring, the plum flowers will come a lot only on these branches at about 10-20 cm from the bough.  In addition, after several years of the standard treatment, we need to thin large boughs during winter in order to lessen the stress on a tree. This year ladies of the Lovers enjoyed hand pruning of plum boughs with lots of flower buds with noble scent. Many brought home the pruned branches for flower arrangement. Come to think of it, there are lots of Ukiyoes for plum blossoming party of ladies ...

Plum tree orchard after pruning

And here comes the important fact of thinning / pruning / clearing forest. After the cutting there will be literally tons of woods, obviously. What should we do with them? Utilizing lumber for woodworks … harvesting logs for fuels of stoves … flower arrangement? It seems to me this is the most difficult part of Niiharu volunteering. The Plan said we should not clear the ground completely anytime. Some remnants of the trees / grasses must be left since they can provide something (shelter, nutrition …) for the other living creatures, and could contribute to the maintenance of bogs by creating the corridor of soil movement from the hills. But when we leave all the cut woods to be rotten, they covered the ground completely and the new growth of dormant seeds underneath is deterred, or worse when the woods host plant diseases. We must take them, the majority of them, out. Oh, by the way, this being in a protected Forest, the work must be done without gasoline engines. A-mano, OK?

Carrying branches from the field

The mountain of cut branches
after the ladies kept the bounty

The pruned plum branches were gathered and transported to a designated field near the Visitor Center where the specialized garbage collector will come to pick them up. The City has a green recycle plant next to Zoorasia. It produces wood chips from pruned and thinned trees harvested mainly in the municipal parks. We loaded the plum branches on a small truck, and the car run 2 round trips to the collection point to complete the job. I guess the plum branches were brought to the recycle plant. The mission accomplished. (Applause.)

Plum brunches were cute, honestly.

Thinning could be a part of collaboration with another organization at the Niiharu Council. Many members of the Association for Niiharu Bounty Community新治恵みの里準備会are elderly folks. Although they are active enough to plough their land for commercial agriculture, their business is often a single senior citizen operation. Their land is every so often surrounded by a private forest of coniferous trees which were planted in the 1940s. More than 70 years of neglect has made those trees huge, with invasive undergrowth. The farmland is not only deprived of sufficient sunshine, but also threatened by spread of shrubs. From Niiharu Citizen Forest’s point of view, even if the problem forest may not be within the border of the Citizen Forest, the situation is happening at the perimeter that will soon bring degradation to the Citizen Forest. The elderly Association cannot treat the problem by themselves, and here comes the Lovers for rescue.

Everybody loves sunshine.

Early March this year, the Lovers volunteers cleared a part of the south facing slope of Mukebara that is next to Zone C where the mission of the Forest is to preserve the natural ecosystem. The place was on the edge of a forest of quercus serrata and a forest of chamaecyparis obtuse / Japanese cedara cryptomeria. Before the work, the slope was populated by Japanese cypresses with 60cm+ of diameter and 30m+ tall. They were planted more than 70 years ago for commercial purpose. Many years have passed since domestic lumbers became uncompetitive against imported woods, and the trees in Mukebara were left uncared that made the trees less and less valuable. Then, the landlord of the farmland at the top of the slope became seriously ill, and no longer able to till the place, or to plan for the work of the cypresses. He rented the place to his neighbor who is now an abuelita in her 70s. She found herself taking care of the land with increasingly scarce sunshine and encroaching bamboo grass. She called help. Lovers with chainsaws were thrilled, of course. They cleared the slope of approx. 50m wide. The objectives of the operation were

• To restore the sunshine and the space for the farmland of the abuelita;
• To utilize the wood harvested from the slope;
• To prepare the slope for hosting mantle vegetation that will protect Zone C. 

And woods? How about woods after cutting? … 30m freshly cut cypresses with 60cm diameter to be pulled from the valley by hands?

Mukebara area seen from A-2 to the south.
It is a typical Satoyama scenery of Niiharu
with the surrounding forest.
The trees immediately next to the farmland
stand outside the boundary of the Citizen Forest,
but it continues to the protected Forest without any barrier.
So, ecologically they are a part of Niiharu Citizen Forest.

The machines are unloaded from the truck. Let’s work!

Cleared slope

The tree was unattended for so many years
and its core is rotten,
which made the tree not commercially valuable.

A cypress without pruning became gnarling.
Volunteers agreed it would be a useful material for artists,
but a junk in construction business …
besides, who knows if it keeps its aesthetic form after drying?

This one will be processed for lumbers
to remake picnic benches in Niiharu Citizen Forest.
By the way, Mr. Ohkawa taught me
the skin of cypress like this would have been
a very good material for the base of roof tiles
covering traditional Japanese houses.
Now, no one bothers. *sigh*

Beautiful … it will be a good bath-tub!

For your information, they are HEAVY.

It took 2 whole days to bring half the cypress woods out of the valley, and as of March 20 the other half is still lying on the slope. What we did was

1. on the slope, slicing huge woods into about 2 to 3 meters long,
2. putting  2-3 ropes around the trunk, secured, aaaaaaaand,
3. pulling the trunk by hand.

The work will be continued until the field above the slope is cleared and some of these woods are turned into tables and picnic chairs. Please stay tuned how the volunteers manage this project …

Equipment for human cranes

The thinner parts of cypresses were brought up first
and were moved near to the road
for making a space to larger trunks.
All by hands, of course.

Slicing the log

Rope it, then …

The human power

It comes this far!

Job half done

After today’s job,
the tune-up must be followed for chainsaws,
even if you are exhausted.

If you plan to spend money for using equipment in a gym, think again, and join our Lovers’ activity. The weight we had to pull was NOT a joke. We thinned the forest, and I believed I thinned my BMI. Unfortunately, the weight scale of mine very coldly notified I lost only 100g on that day. *sigh* 

Phoosticks in Umeda River

If you find a problem in the Niiharu Forest, please make a contact with

Office for the Park Greeneries in the North 北部公園緑地事務所

Yokohama Municipal Government Creative Environment Policy Bureau 横浜市環境創造局

Phone: 045-311-2016 (I guess in Japanese only)

FAX: 045-316-8420 (I hope there is somebody who can read English …)

Niiharu Administrative Office / Satoyama Exchange Center 新治管理事務所・里山交流センター

Phone: 045-931-4947

Fax: 045-937-0898

Email: info@niiharu.jp

http://www.niiharu.jp/

Coordination Saves Niiharu Forests’ Lives

So, Niiharu Forest of more than 70ha in the middle of Metropolitan Tokyo is managed by a tiny local bureaucracy and THE army of citizen volunteers. We Japanese are ordinary humans who can quarrel for stupid things, and if a large number of us gather randomly the chaos is ensured. The key for the success here is, “Coordination Saves Niiharu Forests’ Lives,” honestly. Just like OCHA being under the international law, having something written to begin with is handy. Niiharu Forest has one: Niiharu Conservation and Management Plan 新治保全管理計画. It’s a documentation completed in 2011 for the 10^th anniversary of the opening of the Niiharu Citizen Forest. To make it, many actors for the Forest such as the civil society organizations, academics and mandarins bumped their heads each other for several years (ha, ha, I told you Japanese can quarrel), and reached an (хорошо!) amicable agreement for the long-term management of the Forest. Forest cannot argue. Forest cannot be in a hurry according to fickle human demands. The very basic premise of the Plan is, it seems to me, it is we, humans, to be considerate for the Niiharu Forest. Do you remember we visited Niiharu Charter of 2000 last April? The Plan is about how to achieve that goal.

“We, the people in Yokohama, love the Niiharu Forest of beautiful nature, and appreciate the blessings the Forest provides us.

Niiharu Citizen Forest would be one of the wonders in a big city. It has been maintained by ordinary life of people in Niiharu for generations.

Now, we open the Forest as the place for every citizen to protect, nurture, and carry the memory of traditional scenery of Yato.

We define our motto for Niiharu such that we revive and re-energize the Niiharu Forest through the cohabitation between the nature and human life, in order to pass this treasure to our children and beyond.

We declare Niiharu Charter such as

1. Passing the cultural climate of the nature of Niiharu, and its Satoyama that has been nurtured by Niiharu people , to our next generations,
2. Fostering the nature of Niiharu and the next generations of ours to develop more powerful co-habitation between the nature and the humans, through activities to take care of the Forest, and,
3. Co-owning all the images of ideal forest for any forest lovers, and cooperating each other in order to create the Forest for every citizen.

At the opening of Niiharu Citizen Forest, by all the Lovers of Niiharu Citizen Forest

March 2000"

Before Niiharu became a park or a citizen forest the place has been for ordinary Japanese farmers to live peaceful lives. i.e. The Niiharu Forest has landlords whose family tradition keeps knowledge of land management of the area. “Rice cultivation? It’s to be done in yato valley.” “Deep in that part of the forest is home for wild silkworms whose cocoons can produce the best quality (and profitable) silk so that we have to keep the place good for them.” “Beneath this space runs a complex system of water stream. If we dig holes randomly, the land will collapse. We must be very careful.” So on and on and on … There are variety of reasons why each location became a part of the Niiharu Citizen Forest and Park. “Er, the inheritance issues, you know?” “Our family wants to keep planting rice here, but we don’t have enough labor …” “Our family has been working with the neighborhood organization xyz for decades to manage this place. We want to keep our arrangement in an improved way.” Etc, etc, etc. Adding scientific assessment to these conditions by academics and the 3 pillars of Niiharu Charter, the Plan has made a zoning over the entire Niiharu Forest.

A plum orchard the Lovers volunteers planted
several years ago,
after clearing the mess due to a long neglect.
(By the way, the landlord is a temple nearby.)
Now the trees give us a sweet scent
and beautiful flowers in every March.
Beneath is a natural canal of water.
A veteran volunteer told me laughing
“Don’t jump! Your foot will give away,
and you’ll drop down straight!”

The declaration of Niiharu Charter tells us the Niiharu Plan should achieve (1) Nurturing the community who appreciate the natural environment, (2) Transferring traditional knowledge of Satoyama life to the next generation, and (3) Protecting the ecosystem of the area. The historical relationship between the Forest and people is reflected in these 3 pillars, and correspondingly the Niiharu Plan has 3 zones with the set outcome and priorities for each. Zone A is in the northeast of the Forest whose set outcome is for nurturing public knowledge about the environment of Niiharu. Zone B is in the northwest where the outcome emphasizes the continuation and knowledge transfer of Satoyama management. Zone C is the rest of the forest with the outcome for the natural ecosystem conservation. Then, each zone is divided into sub-zones with the decided sub-outcomes and implementation plans to obtain the outputs contributing to the sub-outcomes. From here that the Plan turns into a wonky but extremely practical reference book.

As you may have expected, Okutsu House is in Zone A.

For example, Zone B has 4 subzones. Among them, Zone B-2 includes Asahi Yato rice paddies next to Zone A. B-2 has its own set outcome: the forest is managed to restore and maintain traditional yato rice cultivation landscape which is a continuation of rice paddies and the surrounding slopes climbing to the ridge with forests. The Niiharu Plan records the baseline condition of B-2.  As of 2010, the area consists of 1 forest of overgrown deciduous broadleaved trees (; an indication Satoyama forestry has not kept coppicing), 1 place of shrubs and vines for mantle vegetation (; probably an abandoned spots for commercial forestry after the Satoyama trees were cleared), 2 large coniferous forests (; saying these spots have been commercially planted in the 1940s, and the forest floor is very dark), 3 forests of pin oaks (; wonderful! They keep the remnants of Satoyama), 2 bamboo forests (; ditto for the continuation of Satoyama landscape), a colony of silver grass along the rice paddies (; i.e. the paddy management does not have enough hands to maintain footpaths), a forest of quercus myrsinifolia (; i.e. the place has reverted to the vegetation of 2000 years ago with limited sunshine = little biodiversity), a grass field left by a recent deforestation, 3 orchards and the Yato-da rice paddies. For the B-2 outcome to be materialized, the Plan sets 4 outputs. One is reducing the acreage of coniferous forests and expanding the pin oak forests. Second is to thin a forest of monotone quercus myrsinifolia to turn it into a forest of various trees including small deciduous trees and grasses. Third is to maintain and nurture the pin oak forests with timely coppicing. Finally the forth is to repair the canals + footpaths in and around the rice paddies, and to thin out trees immediately standing along the paddies for more sunshine to rice cultivation.

Looking at the bottom of Yato-da rice paddies.
Beyond the paddies is one of the fruit orchards in B-2.
The trees along the paddies are too tall that can block sunshine.
It becomes dark around 16:00 even during the high-summer,
and rice at the sides of the paddies cannot grow well.

The indicators to achieve these outputs are the lists of vegetation, animals and insects who once lived in the area and could return when the Plan is successful. If humans maintain traditional rice cultivation in order, the slope surrounding the paddies will have more diverse vegetation that helps yato to gather naturally cleaned water. The paddies will host abundant aquatic insects, including fireflies. Rana ornativentris werner, rana japonica and venomous rhabdophis tigrinus are expected to come back. Strategic coppicing create the hills of young and vigorous deciduous trees where many insects, meadow buntings and small animals such as hares will enjoy lots of food. Then, lanius bucephalus and buteo japonicas should thrive in the area with enough food to sustain themselves. So, here we have a clear list of programme outcome, output, baseline, indicators and targets for B-2 management. The Niiharu Plan then proceeds to explain the meticulous implementation plan with lots of graphics.

The footpath of the yato paddies
after plowing in the spring. Lots of flowers!

Take coppicing in the forest of pin oaks. The Niiharu Plan explains in step-by-step the methodology to coppice the forest by monthly and multi-year schedules of works for the climate of Yokohama. Coppice quercus serrata and sawtooth oak once in 10 to 15 years during January to March. How to cut trees depends on the ground condition: if it’s flat, cut them from the root, but in slopes it’s OK to leave 30-50cm from the ground to make the work safer. The new shoots will come anyway if sunlight and water are enough. Start the work from the southeast as this will facilitate the spread of sunlight over the area during this long-term project. 3 years after the coppicing, in August and September, do “Moyakaki” which is a thinning of new suckers to keep only the vigorous tillers that have survived typhoon and heavy snow. Then, annually in summer, thin the congested lower branches of the young trees, which will promote the healthy growth of the tree. Summer is a good time as the cut wounds will be healed by saps. After coppicing, weeding of the forest floor is in the annual to do list. It will help baby serrata and oak to receive enough sunshine without being covered by bamboo grass or evergreen aucuba japonica. But never weed the forest in May and June because bambusicola thoracicus are breeding at that time. July and September are suitable, and cut the grass in 0-20cm above the ground; i.e. do not mow monotonically, as the variegated weeding will maintain the biodiversity of the place. Don’t forget scraping the fallen leaves in February, by 1 or 2 people per 3000 m². It will stimulate the germination of cymbidium goeringii and anemone in April. The work is to be done by small number of people in order to avoid compacting the soil. After thinning, weeding and scraping, carry out the sheared vegetation from the forest for recycle. If we leave them in situ, it will block new sprouting …

Sickles for weeding

All the other areas (coniferous forests, swamps, area next to colony of detached houses etc. …) have equally detailed instructions of works to reach to the output stated in the Plan. Moreover, all the explanations are accompanied by location-specific simulations for “the case when the place is not sufficiently taken care of” and “the case where too enthusiastic intervention has been done.” As you can imagine, the Niiharu Conservation and Management Plan is a bulky tome that can help urban amateurs to be active in eco-friendly forestry. But can anyone, an individual or one group, do it alone? Here comes the matter of coordination among actors in the Forest.

There are bright pink flowers of peach trees
in one of the orchards in B-2.

For instance, in B-2 area the works in and around Asahi Yato rice paddies are done by the Organization for Promoting Niiharu Satoyama Community. They have a project to restore and preserve historical Satoyama rice cultivation for Yato-da rice paddies. Before Niiharu became the Citizen Forest and the Park, the Organization was already collaborating with the landlord of the paddies who was troubled by acute labor shortage. Then, after the new Agricultural Land Act of 2010 became effective and the taxation on ag-products was modernized, their collaboration evolved into a pure conservation effort for the culture of traditional organic rice cultivation in yato geography. The volunteers of the Project engage in repairs of footpaths and canals, thinning the surrounding trees to obtain enough sunlight to the paddies, seeding rice in an adjacent dry farmland, ploughing and tilling the paddies non-mechanically, planting by hands the seedlings transferred from the farmland, weeding, controlling the water, treating pests and diseases (organically, of course), harvesting by hand, drying and threshing without motorized machines, … i.e. everything of traditional rice cultivation including the regular November party for cooking new rice at the charcoal cooking stoves in Okutsu House.

Early March, volunteers for Yato-da paddies sow seeds of rice.
I didn’t know seedlings of rice could come from dry farmland
... The textbooks in my elementary school said all were in rice paddies
 … The leader of the volunteers of Asahi Yato told me
this is their traditional way.

And in the same day they are mending
the footpath along the yet dry paddy.
Such prep works are very important
for successful rice cultivation.

The traditional stoves with old-style
rice cookers  in Okutsu House

The orchards in B-2 are basically owned and taken care of by the members of the Association for Niiharu Bounty Community whose product will come out for the Farmers’ Market when it is in season. The rest of the B-2 area is the territory of the Lovers of Niiharu Citizen Forest where many members have observed the improvement of the area for more than 20 years (i.e, before the Forest became the Citizen Forest). The members of the Niiharu Council coordinate the huge menu of works at once a month meeting, and help each other when the things go rough. In the 2000s, the Lovers of Waterside of Ipponbashi Bridge Medaka Plaza engaged in educational activities about rice cultivation for the schools in and around the area. Unfortunately, the Lovers of Waterside encountered the problem of the volunteer staff shortage. The work was transferred to the Council for Fun Learning along Umeda River, with a technical support by the Organization for Promoting Niiharu Satoyama Community. The arrangement enabled the educational rice paddy adjacent to Zone A to maintain its mission to “nurture the community who knows the value of taking care of the biodiverse traditional environment.” The veterans of Lovers of Niiharu Citizen Forest who are in charge of the Forest Atelier teach at Okutsu House when the Organization holds seminars for traditional handcrafts such as bamboo basket weaving, or accessary making with the materials from the Forest. These cross-over activities contribute to the Outcome of Zone A where Okutsu House Stands. Coordination Saves Niiharu Forest’s Lives, mate.

Ipponbashi Bridge Medaka Plaza

The flat hill top is an educational rice paddy
the Council for Fun Learning inherited
from the Lovers of Waterside.
In winter the place is dormant,
waiting for the kids to return coming spring.

The hill of this part belongs to Zone A-4
whose sub-zone outcome is to provide the environment
where kids can play and learn Satoyama
and its ecosystem.
The thinning and weeding of the slope has been done
by professional landscapers hired by the City,
as the place had too much bamboo grass and huge trees
which were a bit tricky to be handled by the volunteers.
It is a result of a coordination between the civil society and the City.

If you find a problem in the Niiharu Forest, please make a contact with

Office for the Park Greeneries in the North 北部公園緑地事務所

Yokohama Municipal Government Creative Environment Policy Bureau 横浜市環境創造局

Phone: 045-311-2016 (I guess in Japanese only)

FAX: 045-316-8420 (I hope there is somebody who can read English …)

Niiharu Administrative Office / Satoyama Exchange Center 新治管理事務所・里山交流センター

Phone: 045-931-4947

Fax: 045-937-0898

Email: info@niiharu.jp

http://www.niiharu.jp/

The Council for Niiharu Citizen Forest: The volunteer organizations for Niiharu Citizen Forest

Actually, Niiharu Forest is protected by many volunteers and volunteer organizations. They are the members of the Council for Conservation and Management of Niiharu Citizen Forest 新治市民の森保全管理協議会, and hold once in a month meeting with the City (and sometimes national) government officials. The main objective of the gathering is to coordinate the activities within and around the Niiharu Forest by the volunteers and the City. The occasion is also to discuss practical requests for the Forest management both from the volunteers and the government. So, it is one of the very grassroots forums for environmental policy in the City of Yokohama.

Prep for forest work

My gaijin peers are often surprised when I tell them Japan has a very tiny bureaucracy comparing with the other OECD countries. In OECD Government at Glance 2013, Japanese mandarins are only around 7% of the working population. Moreover, 85% of the 7% are for local government. The governors and mayors are locally elected to head the local bureaucracy, and the hiring of local mandarins is independent from that of national bureaucrats. The key posts are held by career bureaucrats in the local government, not by somebody from the central government in Tokyo. In terms of money, the main income for local governments is from local income/corporate taxes and the property tax (; Japan does not have national property tax). All in all, Japanese system has an emphasis on local matters. As of 2015, Yokohama is the largest government-ordinance designated city 政令指定都市 of a special status, far larger than Osaka by roughly 1 million more population. Our independence is stronger with a robust tax base. The large population pays steady stream of income taxes. Nissan has its Global Headquarter in Yokohama. Google Japan will come within a couple of years. The vicinity to Tokyo means land price in our city is not at all cheap, and so the tax revenue is higher. If you have to manage this large modern city with a tiny number of employees facing lots of demands from fussy and numerous taxpayers, you really need help from the citizens, right? The way Niiharu Forest being managed by the Council of volunteers is one way of doing it.

The army of volunteers

The regulars for Niiharu Council are the Lovers of Niiharu Citizen Forest 新治市民の森愛護会, the Organization for Promoting Niiharu Satoyama Community (Specified non-profit organization: NPO) 新治里山「わ」を広げる会, the Association for Niiharu Bounty Community 新治恵みの里準備会, the Council for Fun Learning along Umeda River 梅田川水辺の楽校協議会, and the Lovers of Waterside of Ipponbashi Bridge Medaka Plaza 一本橋めだか広場水辺愛護会. The Organization for Promoting Niiharu Satoyama Community is the designated administrator by the City for Niiharu Satoyama Park and Satoyama Community Center, which is the area surrounding Okutsu House and Tsudoi-no-Ie つどいの家 (Gathering House). Niiharu area is so-called “the North Forest of Yokohama,” and the Organization manages the visitor center to provide information about the entire North Forest that includes Niiharu and Miho Forests. Those events held at Okutsu House or Tsudoi-no-ie, such as handcraft seminars, herbal gardening lessons or scientific guide tours of the Forest is mainly organized by them. The Spring Satoyama Tour I attended last year was organized by the Organization. They also manage a project to preserve Asahi Yato rice paddies (which is on the left of B-2 in the map).

The Visitor Center

The front desk of the Visitor Center

The volunteers of the Organization raise fund
by selling herb seedlings.

Herb and plum tree gardens in the Park

A volunteer lady explains spring vegetation
along Asahi Yato.

Asahi Yato for rice cultivation, Spring 2015

The Association for Niiharu Bounty Community consists of Niiharu farmers who responded to the call of cooperation from the City. Yokohama has an agricultural policy called “Bounty Community Plan” to promote local agriculture and reduce food mileage for non-ag families nearby. The Association’s fields more or less surround the Forest. The area next to the Park, and the area between A1-3, C-4 and D1-4 in the map are one of those productive fields. In Okutsu House or Tsudoi-no-ie, they organize educational sessions for urban families to experience vegetable farming and for cooking lessons with the products from their field. For this month, March 13 is to make buckwheat noodle, and March 27 is to cook sweet rice cake with mugwort. (To attend, RVSP here and here: boxes from the above, you need to write your name, email, phone #, all the names of the participants of your team, and the name of the town of your residence.) Their Saturday Farmers’ Market in Tsudoi-no-ie is so popular that locals start to make a line from 9:00 and almost all the veggies are gone by 10:00 AM. (Nagayamon Asa-ichi にいはる長屋門朝市, every Saturday from 9:30 till sold-out.)

The field next to the Park

The field near Mukebara D-2

You know, you cannot have time to take photos
at the beginning if the competition is so fierce.

So-called “a radish on steroid,”
or Daikon,
at Niiharu Nagayamon Asa-ichi

The Council for Fun Learning along Umeda River is a part of a project funded by theMinistry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transportation of Japan, started in 1996. The main concept of the project is to provide occasions for kids to learn how to play with the nature of waterfront. (Oh, those Playstation worms who do not know real river …) At the moment there are 288 volunteer organizations nation-wide registered at the Ministry for the project. The Council for Umeda River was established in 1999 which is the only group in Yokohama for this scheme. They are not a single body but more of a coordinator of several local schools, PTAs, residents’ associations, volunteer organizations, and the City. They provide fun events for kids to know the nature of their backyard river. Their main activities are not in the Niiharu Forest per se, but Umeda River collects waters from the Forest so that it is very important telling children where the water comes from, isn’t it? The annual “Kids’ Day of Umeda River,” held on Marine Day (a national holiday in July) organized by the Umeda River Council is very popular. It is a good occasion for city kids to learn ecosystem of their Umeda River.

Spring along Umeda River

The field of the Umeda River Council

Another volunteer organization that is a member of Niiharu Forest Council but their main activity is not in the Forest is the Lovers of Waterside of Ipponbashi Bridge Medaka Plaza. They are one of 78 Lovers of Waterside organizations registered at the City to preserve urban streams and waterfronts. The Lovers of Ipponbashi Bridge established themselves in 2003 and have more focus on ecosystem conservation of Umeda River. They clean up Umeda River every 2^nd Saturday of a month starting from Ipponbashi Bridge Medaka Plaza that is at Ipponbashi Bridge near Niiharu Elementary. It is one of the major issues for urban ecosystem that the rampant land developments destroy soil’s ability to retain water, and hence cause frequent flooding in the cities when it rains. The Lovers of Waterside of Ipponpashi Bridge Medaka Plaza tries to mitigate the problem along the Umeda River by joining the Niiharu Council whose members manage the Forest and preserve Yato-style rice cultivation that traditionally works as a water reservoir in Yokohama’s hilly landscape.

Umeda River along Niiharu Elementary.
This landscape is maintained by the Lovers of Waterside
of Ipponbashi Bridge Medaka Plaza.

Umeda River in early summer

Together with the Lovers of Niiharu Citizen Forest, the volunteers coming from these organizations tackle with the environmental management of Niiharu area. Next week, I explain how they are doing it. J

If you find a problem in the Niiharu Forest, please make a contact with

Office for the Park Greeneries in the North 北部公園緑地事務所

Yokohama Municipal Government Creative Environment Policy Bureau 横浜市環境創造局

Phone: 045-311-2016 (I guess in Japanese only)

FAX: 045-316-8420 (I hope there is somebody who can read English …)

Niiharu Administrative Office / Satoyama Exchange Center 新治管理事務所・里山交流センター

Phone: 045-931-4947

Fax: 045-937-0898

Email: info@niiharu.jp

http://www.niiharu.jp/