Satoyama (里山) is a Japanese term applied to the border zone or area between mountain foothills and arable flat land.
Satoyamas have been developed through centuries of small scale agricultural and forestry use.
The concept of satoyama has several definitions.
The first definition
is the management of forests through local agricultural communities.
During the Edo era, young and fallen leaves were gathered from community forests to use as fertilizer
in wet rice paddy fields. Villagers also used wood for construction,
cooking and heating.
More recently, satoyama has been defined not only
as mixed community forests, but also as entire landscapes that are used
for agriculture. According to this definition, satoyama contains a
mosaic of mixed forests, rice paddy fields,
dry rice fields, grasslands, streams, ponds, and reservoirs for
irrigation. Farmers use the grasslands to feed horses and cattle.
Streams, ponds, and reservoirs play an important role in adjusting water
levels of paddy fields and farming fish as a food source.[1]
Population decline in villages is considered a significant driving
factor in the disappearance of satoyama from Japanese mountains. Throughout the 80s and 90s, the satoyama conservation movement was
implemented in Japan. Currently, there are more than 500 environmental
groups that work for the conservation of satoyama. Because of their
efforts, satoyama has become more prevalent in Japanese landscapes.[6]
The satoyama of Saitama Prefecture have been illustrated in anime with great precision and artistic attention to detail in the very popular film, My Neighbour Totoro, by Studio Ghibli, under the direction of the studio's head and founder, Hayao Miyazaki.
The prominence of the satoyama as environment for the story has stirred
popular interest in the regions, and encouraged conservation efforts in
recent times, in large part thanks to this film.
David Attenborough also narrated a one-hour program called Satoyama for NHK in 2004.
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