I knew You Were Trouble: a brief history of Doshi River, Part 3

Although especially for the people of Doshi Village 道志村 it was sneaky the way Yokohama got the ownership of the Doshi Forests, it was true at that time the pace of deforestation was alarming even without consideration for environmental damage. In 1911, Kunio Yanagita 柳田國男, the founding father of Japanese modern ethnology / anthropology, visited Doshi Village, and left a record. At that time, Yanagita was not yet a scholar, but a mandarin for the National Cabinet Office so that his report was more emphasis on practical economic development of Doshi Village, damned-well knowing Yokohama was eyeing for their real estate. He wrote population growth of the community was above the national average which made a huge demand for clearing forests to rice production which Yanagita described “… is religious, not practical, endeavor in such a cold and high-altitude mountainous village.” Doshi villagers in the early 20^th century also cut trees vigorously for charcoal production, for expanding mulberry orchard for sericulture, and for creating pasture land of workhorses popular in the area. Yanagita pointed out the total acreage of the village was too small to sustain these industries for more than a decade even if they had deforested the entire mountains. So, he recommended the community the only remaining option, forestry, to survive.

Well, it would have been true. Rapid deforestation in former forests of Shogun was rampant during the late 19^th century to the early 20^th century. It was the reason why now the places of Tokyo, like Hachioji City 八王子市 or even Nakano 中野区 and Suginami Wards 杉並区 (i.e. the present day downtown Tokyo) are Tokyo now. Till the 1950s Tokyo was dependent solely on Tama River 多摩川 for water. According to Izumi (2004), the forests that were covering the area west of Shinjuku Station 新宿駅, called Tama Region 多摩地域, were disappearing rapidly by the people eager to join in the Japanese industrial revolution. And now, we remember the scenery witnessed from the top of Mt. Takao 高尾山 … an ocean of houses … The trees cleared were once the property of Shogun and functioned as the water source forests for the capital city. They were gone. With a sense of urgency in 1903, a bit earlier than Yokohama, Tokyo started to buy the remaining water source forests in Tama Region from the Imperial Household. Now many of these trees are dominating Chichibu-Tama-Kai National Park 秩父多摩甲斐国立公園 and Meiji Forest Takao Quasi-national Park 明治の森高尾国定公園 with Mt. Takao. Just as in Doshi Village, the villagers in those places were bitter to the Tokyo folks. In Tama regions and Doshi Village having been shut out from industrial development, the former guardians of Shogun’s Treasure Trees became labor force for hard works in the mountainous forests without any privileges once they enjoyed. After purchasing Emperor’s forests in Doshi, in 1917 the City of Yokohama established Administration Office for Doshi Water Source Forests 水源林管理所. Since 1919, the city has had the 10-year plans for the management of Doshi Water Source Forests, and now it’s the 11^th, effective for 2016-2025.  In Doshi River, even fishing was hampered by the construction of Doshi Dam 道志ダム that was to control water flow for Sagami Dam. In 1953 Yokohama made the mouths of Doshi fishermen shut by paying compensation. … You see? The world became less-complicated thanks to the capitalist-labor relation compared to the homage to the feudal lords ... A kind of consolation for Doshi people would be, their forests have kept on being a backbone for superb water supply to the entire Kanagawa Prefecture. The forests for Tama River are now only the secondary water source to Tokyo ...

Anai River 案内川 flowing from near the peak of Mt. Takao.
It was once the water source for Tokyo’s drinking water.
Now this water is used only for industrial usage
including “endangered” rice paddies in the metropolis.
Reason?
Since 1970, Tokyo’s waterworks stopped using Tama River’s water
down from Kosaku Water Intake Facility 小作取水堰,
some 15 km upstream from the confluence of Anai and Tama Rivers.
Back then, the economic “growth” contaminated the River horribly …

I’m not sure if such incidents
during the 1960s and 1970s
made people a sort of relaxed
to the underground water system in the Takao Region.
But it is becoming a common knowledge
water flow from Mt. Takao is
apparently decreased after the construction of
 Takao-san Tunnel 高尾山トンネル for Kenoh-do Highway 圏央道.

After World War II, Japan raced up the economic development. Mega cities vacuumed talented young kids to factory and office jobs from rural area. Doshi Village was no exception. Although Yokohama’s public works sustained the village, disappearing young faces did not give much confidence to the people of Doshi. Then, it came economic bubble during the late 1980s. Lots of former rural places became golf courses that required membership of millions of yen to play. In 1982, for nearby Sagami Lake area there opened Sagamiko Country Club. And National Route 413, aka Doshi Road 道志みち, is a popular among motor tourists going to Mt. Fuji. Doshi people watched lots of rich people passed by their community through the route. Why not open another golf course in a privately owned area? Conveniently in 1988, moneyed developers from Tokyo brought a nice master plan to the landlords. Doshi Village was completely divided about the golf course. Those who fished in the river and engaged in aquaculture were strongly against the plan, fearing contamination by the chemicals heavily applied to keep the course impeccably green. (In Japan where the natural vegetation is temperate rain forest, heavy usage of chemicals for golf courses is MUST.) Hearing the news, mothers of Yokohama were also outraged. “Oh, NO, that place must be immaculately clean for water of our kids in Yokohama! In the first place, those country bumpkins lacking modern education for environmental consciousness should not have a say for such an important matter!” Needless to say, the city of Yokohama was on the side of fishermen and Yokohama moms. The dispute went to the court, and became national news. Meanwhile, Japanese economic bubble burst. Developers in Tokyo quickly became reluctant to be entangled in pricy legal dispute. The election chose new governor of Yamanashi and the new village chief who were skeptical about economic benefit from showy golf courses. In 1993, the plan for a golf course in Doshi Village was abandoned. People in Doshi Village was reminded again the large existence of Yokohama, which is in a different prefecture, 55km away from their village.

Doshi Road

The problem in all of these stories is, for Doshi villagers Yokohama was always there to influence heavily the direction of their life, but people of Yokohama did not care as much. Yokohama says whatever they want when it is convenient for Yokohama, but otherwise forget about the water they owe to Doshi Village. The lopsided perception became damned apparent when the wave of municipal merger hit Doshi at the beginning of the 21^st century. Since 1995, following a national policy to reorganize municipal governments, many villages in Japan chose to merge with the others to be upgraded for a “city.” In 2003, villagers of Doshi collected 653 signs out of 1730 registered voters and submitted the village chief a petition to establish a council discussing a merger with Yokohama. According to 1999 Special Mergers Law for local governments 合併特例法, the merger negotiation would be started when in all the involved local governments 2% of registered voters signed a petition to create a merger council. Doshi Village easily cleared the hurdle with 38% of voters. The reaction of Yokohama was, dumbfounded, really. Astonished mayor of Yokohama did an internet survey and could not collect 2% to start discussion. Yokohama “politely” declined the “offer” from Doshi. … You know? These days my friends know I am enthusiastic about forests, and the topic of our chat could be sometimes about Doshi Water Source Forest. Not many of them have information about Doshi, even when they talk lovingly about Yosemite they visited for the last vacation. Their way of saying about this episode would be something like “Oh, yeah, that poor remote village wanted to have our city money,” or “It’s outrageous that they thought it was possible to suggest such nonsense.” Oh how sad human perception could become …

At the T junction between Route 413 and
Yamanashi’s prefectural road #24 leading us to Tsuru City 都留市.
Doshi Village is next to Tsuru City.
At that time, the Village also discussed a merger with Tsuru City,
which looks quite a natural choice.
For the mind of Doshi villagers
Yokohama easily beat Tsuru to be a potential fiancé for Doshi.
Oh, by the way, to come to Doshi by public transportation,
 the commuterbus service from Tsurushi Station 都留市駅f Fujikyu Line 富士急行 passes here.

Yet, everything has at least a silver lining. 635 signature of Doshi villagers made Yokohama think over our way of communicating with Doshi Village. I tell you next week how the forests in Doshi Village are now. In some way, currently they have a relationship with Yokohama similar to the one the Niiharu Citizen Forest has with Niiharu Lovers. I really hope that would amend historical pileups around Yokohama’s water source forest, if not immediately, but eventually.

* Here is the list of books that gave me the info for this post.

Kenkichi Itoh 伊藤堅吉, and Kunio Yanagita 柳田國男. Doshi 22km (Reprint) 道志七里（復刻版）. Doshi Village Office, 2009.

Seiji Maekawa 前川 清治. The Story of Doshi 22km: a village of greenery, clear stream, and history 道志七里物語―緑と清流と歴史の郷. Yamanashi Nichinichi Shimbun 山梨日日新聞社, 2006. ISBN-10: 4897106141, ISBN-13: 978-4897106144.

Keiko Izumi 泉 桂子. The Origin of Modern Water Resource Conservation Forests: an ecological history of forests and cities 近代水源林の誕生とその軌跡―森林(もり)と都市の環境史. University of Tokyo Press 東京大学出版会, 2004. ISBN-10: 4130760262, ISBN-13: 978-4130760263.

Local Research Club at Eiko Gakuen Highschool 栄光学園郷土研究部. The problem in Doshi Village Golf Course 道志村ゴルフ場問題の死角. 1994.

In case you need a contact in Doshi Village, the address of their village office is

Doshi Village Office 道志村役場

6181-1 Doshi Village, Minamitsuru-gun, Yamanashi, 402-0209 〒402-0209 山梨県南都留郡道志村6181-1

Phone: 0554-52-2111

FAX: 0554-52-2572

http://www.vill.doshi.lg.jp/

Arrested Development: a brief history of Doshi River, Part 2

Doshi 道志 is an elongated area along Doshi River道志川. 2/3 of it is Doshi Village 道志村 in Yamanashi Prefecture, and 1/3 is Aone 青根 and other townships in Kanagawa. According to Izumi (2004), 1903 data says people lived along the river and created arable land around their houses. The agricultural field was surrounded by private forests, then by the property of the village, and finally by the Emperors’ forests to the peaks and beyond of the mountains in both sides of the river. Doshi Village had 4179ha of forests of which only 15.5% was privately owned. The rest was Emperor’s property where villagers as a group were traditionally allowed to enter for their charcoal making business or wood-crafting for kitchen and other supplies, up to a point. Such products were popular as “Made-in Doshi” for centuries in markets of (present-day) Tokyo and Kanagawa. Though, in 1868 the time when Doshi Village could expect some income of forestry from Shogun was gone. It made the rule of forest non-existent. Moreover, the rapid industrialization was sweeping the entire Japan. People in Doshi started to plan joining the modern economy by using their resources for industrial production of charcoal and kitchen supplies, underground minerals, hydro-electric power generation, paper mills and expansion of commercial ag-land. In contrast, the political upheaval in the middle of the century messed up the cycle of planting, nurturing, harvesting, and replanting of trees. After the Meiji Restoration, bold mountains were spreading rapidly again in Doshi Village. In 1903, 40% of Emperor’s land did not have a tree to speak of. By then, the area had frequent floods and landslips, to be sure.

In Aone community, there is this monument
where it had a sentry to warn cities in Kanto Plane
during the World War II when B-29 of the US
approached from the west for carpet bombing.
The thing I want to say with this photo is,
if we clear the woods in Doshi area,
the vegetation could be like this.

Meanwhile, in 1887 the firstmodern waterworks of Japan became operational for Yokohama, but it soon became inadequate to serve for the rapid development of the city. The city moved the water intake from the confluence of Sagami 相模川 and Doshi Rivers to Doshi River alone and built up the system further. For the endeavor, Japanese national government gave awfully generous grants to the City of Yokohama. By 1901, the first project cycle of network expansion was completed and Yokohama achieved a balanced budget for the waterworks, which is now the tradition of Yokohama’s water. (“Thank you for your majesty in Tokyo!”) From the very beginning the system uses entirely closed ditch between the water intake facility and purification plants. The quality and quantity taken from Doshi River directly affects the water for Yokohama. The city became very watchful and demanding for the condition of Doshi River, or to be exact, of the environment of water source in Doshi Village. At that time, villagers of Doshi were busy destroying the water source forests. In 1903 Yokohama organized a preliminary survey about the situation of the forests covering the entire Doshi area. The civil engineers found if villagers cut the trees in this pace for charcoal or other industrial usage, the forests in Doshi would have been gone within 5-10 years. The city with her big brother in Tokyo became aggressive. With a help of friends in the national government, Yokohama blocked the plan to develop copper mines in Doshi, and in 1897 paid 5000 yen, or USD 51000 in 2018 (cheap, huh?), for the holder of prospecting rights as compensation. The blueprints for hydro power plants and paper mills in Lower Doshi were crushed by the hands of the Governor of Kanagawa, and several ministers of the national government. Kanagawa also made a tag team with Yamanashi Prefecture and devised a grant scheme for afforestation by the villagers of Doshi. Though, it was not enough to compensate the cash flow people received from manufacturing charcoal and the other products through deforestation. Villagers of course ignored it. Soon, residents of Doshi became more and more suspicious of and hostile to Yokohama. Then there came the final nail in the coffin.

The mountain under the cloud is Mt. Fuji, seen from Lower Doshi.
The place is this near to Mt. Fuji area.

Upper Doshi, aka Doshi Village, was / is under the administrative jurisdiction of Yamanashi Prefecture 山梨県. The lord of Yamanashi was traditionally a close relative of Shogun in Edo 徳川将軍家 during Tokugawa Shogunate 徳川幕府 so that after the Meiji Restoration 明治維新 the place had lots of Emperor’s forests. Needless to say, the prefecture and the Imperial Household who was in charge of Emperor’s property wanted to maximize the profit out of their “public” forest. Regarding Doshi forests, they haggled with Yokohama and Kanagawa for about two decades, and reached a deal in 1915 when Yokohama completed the second project cycle for the expansion to supply water for 800 thousand residents. The mayor of Yokohama and the governor of Yamanashi agreed on October 12, 2015 “To celebrate the coronation of Emperor Yoshihito (嘉仁 the father of Emperor Hirohito), 2800 ha of Emperor’s forests in Doshi is to be sold to the City of Yokohama by 130 thousand yen (about USD 2.6 million for 2018).” On October 22, i.e. 10 days later, the Ministry of Interior, who could talk with the Imperial Household, completed the paper works for the real estate deal. Have you noticed there was no player from Doshi Village in this very swift business? Yap. After October 22^nd, the village received a letter from the prefectural government curtly notifying 40% of their village had changed the ownership from the Emperor to the City of Yokohama. People were astounded. They had an emergency village assembly and on October 29, delivered a petition to the Governor of Yamanashi, politicians, any possibly influential offices … either to nullify the deal, or to guarantee the continuation of their charcoal and other manufacturing business as with the forests of the Emperor. No one in high offices listened.

From Upper Doshi
looking to the direction of the downtown Sagamihara 相模原, opposite direction to Mt. Fuji.
Hmmm. Looks same. Just mountains …

Thus, the Yokohama’s largest Citizen Forest was born as the Water Source Forests of Doshi Village. In Doshi, the episode has been passed on from generation to generation as “The day when our village was sold off to Yokohama.” From that time onwards, like it or not people of Doshi Village has been asked … er, well, forced … to engage in the business of water source forests for Yokohama. Cutting trees for charcoal baking business, or developing copper mine, paper mill, etc. are No-No-No. The demand from their largest landlord, aka Yokohama, dictates so. Reading Prof. Izumi’s story and the exhibitions in Yokohama Waterworks Commemoration Hall 横浜水道記念館, I felt it was very opportunistic for Yokohama to take advantage of Doshi River. Prof. Izumi, who was born in Yamanashi, wrote that the prefectural government of Yamanashi regarded Doshi Village so peripheral to allocate their forest management budget adequately. Sitting in their downtown office more than 50km far from the forests, Yokohama and the national government jumped at the opening from neglect to grab water. Looking south from the village, just over the ridge of Tanzawa mountains, there ran rivers now for Lakes of Miyagase 宮ケ瀬湖 and Tanzawa 丹沢湖 where former-guards of Shogun’s treasure trees built hydroelectric plants, forestry companies, river sand pits for construction, etc., etc. to join with the industrializing Tokyo. Yes, 100 years later, they too become the water source for Yokohama just like Doshi River. Probably, Doshi Village was different only because of their convenient location to build the first Japanese modern waterworks … It must have been looked really unfair for the Doshi villagers at that time ... And now? 

The present-day campus of Doshi Junior High.
The place now is peaceful … thank Buddha, honestly.

I made this post based on the information given at Yokohama Waterworks Commemoration Hall 横浜水道記念館 and the books below:

YokohamaWaterworks Commemoration Hall 横浜水道記念館

522 Kawashimacho, Hodogaya-ku, Yokohama, 240-0045 横浜市保土ケ谷区川島町522

Phone: 045-371-1621

Seiji Maekawa 前川 清治. The Story of Doshi 22km: a village of greenery, clear stream, and history 道志七里物語―緑と清流と歴史の郷. Yamanashi Nichinichi Shimbun 山梨日日新聞社, 2006. ISBN-10: 4897106141, ISBN-13: 978-4897106144.

Keiko Izumi 泉 桂子. The Origin of Modern WaterResource Conservation Forests: an ecological history of forests and cities 近代水源林の誕生とその軌跡―森林(もり)と都市の環境史. University of Tokyo Press 東京大学出版会, 2004. ISBN-10: 4130760262, ISBN-13: 978-4130760263.

In case you need a contact in Doshi Village, the address of their village office is

Doshi Village Office 道志村役場

6181-1 Doshi Village, Minamitsuru-gun, Yamanashi, 402-0209 〒402-0209 山梨県南都留郡道志村6181-1

Phone: 0554-52-2111

FAX: 0554-52-2572

http://www.vill.doshi.lg.jp/