Community Initiatives in Takayama - How the residents start own actions for local development

Takayama city is located in Gifu Prefecture in the central region of Japan. It is one of the largest cities in the country in terms of area having around 2,100 square kilometers (almost same as Tokyo Metropolitan area) with its population of less than 100,000 (whereas Tokyo Metropolitan City has more than 12 million population).

The city is famous for its historical landscape of old-fashioned streets and houses, and various cultural events. Several times since 2002, this city has received development practitioners from Indonesia who participated in JICA training courses on community development. Takayama is located in mountain area of central Japan, and although the city attracts tourists as many as 4.5 million per year from all over Japan, the communities there have been experiencing problems of de-population and aging societies which are common in the rural areas throughout Japan. However, the training participants witnessed that there are some actions taken by either CBOs (community based organizations) or NPOs (Non Profit Organizations) in order to tackle those problems. Communities in Takayama provide good examples of how local people can take initiatives to solve their own problems.

Shingu-cho: initiative of CBO

Shingu-cho is located at the outskirts of Takayama city having around 500 households. The original community of Shingu-cho started several hundred years ago with a few farmers engaged in rice production, horse and cow rearing, and forestry. The number of households was still around 50 after the 2^nd world war, but it rapidly increases continuously as the community is located near the city center along the main street connecting Takayama and the outside cities. Many advertisement signboards were displayed along the street, and new houses or buildings of “modern” type were constructed here and there in the community. As a result, the beautiful scenery of countryside village with traditional houses, fields, and woods started to be changed into a kind of confusion or mess.

In the mid-1990s, one of the community leaders, Mr. Akio Kitamura, took initiative to protect and restore the landscape of the village. He asked the Shingu-cho Chonaikai (community association consisting of all the households) to arrange agreement among the private companies using the signboards, owners of the lands that the signboards were placed, and the Takayama city government. The Chounaikai pushed those parties to take necessary measures for reducing the advertisement signboards, and finally they reached agreement to restrict construction of signboards in the community area and instead to construct “integrated community signboards” that only allow advertisement of private companies. As a result, various kinds of big signboards placed here and there in the community were removed, and now you can enjoy beautiful scenery of a traditional Japanese village in Shingu-cho.

After the successful achievement of regulating advertisement signboards, Mr. Kitamura formed a committee for community development promotion in the Chounaikai. The committee consists of 15 core members of the community residents including experts of architecture design, civil engineering, and development consulting. The committee actively took initiatives to start various activities for improvement of living environment in the community, such as extending community roads, covering irrigation canals, and constructing drainage channels. The committee also successfully established a self-regulation rule for environment and scenery protection in 1998. The rule intends to regulate construction or change of roads, canals, buildings, and advertisement signboards in the community. Any plan of acts of such construction or change should be reported to the committee in advance, and the committee checks the plan and gives approval if it conforms to the regulation. This regulation aims at controlling undesirable change of living environment of the community. Although it does not have legal authority to force the actors to follow, the Shingu-cho community has been successfully maintaining good scenery and natural environment surrounding them.

In recent years, the Shingu-cho Chounaikai started a new activity with the initiative of Mr. Kitamura. That is “community-based disaster preparedness”. With the motto of “let’s protect our community by ourselves”, the Chounaikai asked the residents to form small groups consisting of 5 neighboring households that may act as self-help or self-rescue groups in case of emergency. Each group lists up households of elderly persons who need special assistance, those who has generators or construction machineries, medical facilities or persons who have medical skills, and places for emergency evacuation and shelters. The Chounaikai also prepared a manual for disaster prevention measures. Recently, it held a joint training meeting for disaster preparedness at the city hall involving the city government and other community-based organizations. In Japan, it is now being widely recognized that the community should take active roles for disaster protection, and the activity of Shingu-cho Chounaikai is definitely one of the most advanced and leading examples throughout Japan.

Mr. Kitamura, the leader of Shingu-cho explains how he facilitates the community actions;

I am only an initiator who “set fire” to the community people. The important thing is selecting appropriate persons in the community to play active roles. If you select a person to lead an activity, you should trust and let him/her to do. It is also necessary to set up an easy-understandable goal and motto for any activity. As for collaboration with outside stakeholders, you should keep good relation with them. If you need to involve public administration, go and ask advice from them before starting concrete actions in the community.

Mr. and Mrs. Yasuda, owners of a small but attractive hotel with family atmosphere, who have lived in Shingu-cho for more than 20 years, express special characteristics of the community.

What is most interesting feature of the Shingu-cho community is that there are several core leaders with good solidarity and strong leadership. They are from the families who have been living here for more than hundred years, and share strong feelings to protect living environment of the community. Most of the old residents here feel that they have inherited all the natural resources and facilities in the community such as forests, rice fields and irrigation canals from their ancestors, and they have strong will to preserve them for the next generation. Another important characteristic of the community is “local wisdom of keeping good human relations”. There are various opportunities for the community members to gather. In April, we have to clean the drainage among the neighborhood, and after the cleaning, there is a party to enjoy cherry blossoms. There are also several ceremonies or festivals of Shinto Shrine that all the community members are requested to participate. In addition, we have several sports events throughout a year. All those occasions give us opportunities to meet, talk, and help each other. For most of the residents, or even for the ex-members of the community who already migrated out to the other cities, this community is the special place to come back, to rely on, and to live with.

Soramachi Club : Initiatives from a locally-based NPO

Souyuji-cho shows totally different characteristics from Shingu-cho. Located in the center of Takayama city, it has long history of various human activities such as trading, commerce, lodging, and dining. There are around 100 households living in very small houses joining each other, and the residents shared narrow spaces for everyday life and helped each others. It was a kind of typical down-town lifestyle that they had. However, as most of the younger generations prefer living outside the area in order to have larger houses, Souyuji-cho has been suffering severe condition of aging society. Only old generations remain in the community, and there are much less young families with children living there. Economic activities have also been affected by the de-population, and there are now many vacant houses and shops without having tenants. As a result of aging society and de-population, community tie among the residents become weakened, and it is even difficult for the residents to help each other in special occasions such as festivals or rituals.

In 2001, a group of volunteers who wanted to facilitate community based activities formed “Soramachi Club” in this community. Previously, they were members of Takayama-city-organized community development study group. After completing study activities and presenting suggestions to the city on community development in the city-center of Takayama, they took initiative to start actions based on their suggestion. It was because the members felt frustrated that the city government just received their suggestions and did not take them seriously. They wanted to practice what they felt important for community development of Takayama, and selected the area of Souyuji-cho as their field.

The Soramachi Club found its base in a vacant shop located at the center of the community, because they thought that it was important to have a place for both the community people and outside citizens to gather. Then, they started various activities such as photo exhibition on the history of Souyuji-cho, summer festival, Tuesday market, weekly lunch salon, and handicraft classes. All the activities are organized and supported by the volunteers coming from various areas of the city. The objectives of those activities are to revive community relations among the residents and with the outside people so that the community people themselves can take initiative to solve various problems with the help of outsiders.

The general secretary of SOMNEED, Ms. Yumiko Takeuchi, who is actively involved as a facilitator in the activities of Soramachi-Club, states achievement so far and challenges for the future;

It was not easy for us to start activities in Souyuji-cho community. When the study group implemented interviews in the area, the community members expressed various needs such as lack of meeting space, difficulty of everyday shopping for the elderly, etc. When we started activities at Soramachi Club, we tried to provide opportunities for the community to solve their problem. However, the community people did not easily visit and use the facility. They could not trust us because we were strangers and outsiders for them who may suddenly leave the community at some time.

It was after 2 years when I was invited in a community meeting to discuss about repairing drainage in the community that I felt we were accepted by the community. When I attended the meeting, the community people at the first time recognized us as one of their partners for community development.

In 2005, the chairperson of the Souyuji-cho chonaikai (Community Association) started to use the room at the 2^nd floor of Soramachi Club. We were very happy to know it, because it indicated that the community people acknowledged the place to be a part of their community. Recently, an owner of public bath facility in the community renewed the bath and constructed a meeting room in the facility. He had often visited the Soramachi Club, and understood the importance of meeting place for community activities. I think it is one of great achievements of our activity in Souyuji-cho as development facilitators.

As for impact of our activity, it can also be said that the surrounding local governments are influenced by our practice in Soramachi club. They are encouraged by our activities and realized the importance of community centers managed by community people or NPOs. There are around 1,000 visitors in a year who want to learn from our experience.

Modani Fruit Garden : Individual effort for economic development

Kuguno area of Takayama city used to form an independent administrative division (cho) different from Takayama City. Recently, this area amalgamated with Takayama, and became a part of the city. It is located at south of Takayama city center, mostly covered by agricultural fields and mountains. It is a typical rural mountainous area where major industries are vegetable production and tourism, both of which experience difficulty to gain economic profits as they have to compete with other areas nearer to the big cities.

In this area, there is one farmer who took initiative to start a fruit garden that now attracts many customers outside the area by its delicious apple and other fruits products. In 1970, Mr. Akira Taniguchi asked other farmers to form an agricultural cooperative that manage fruits garden. Before, most of farmers in Kuguno area own very limited size of paddy field (5,000 square meters in average), that does not yield well because of bad geographical condition. After integrating and improving farming plots, the cooperative consisting of 7 farmers now produces apple, peach, and cherry with annual sales of around 110 million yen.

The uniqueness of the Modani Fruit Garden is its active and progressive role in promoting community development by utilizing local resources in maximum ways. It invites school children from other prefectures to visit the garden and gives opportunity to experience harvesting fruits. Mr. Tanicuchi also promotes the garden’s main product, apple, to be used for gifts given to guests at wedding receptions by printing names of the married couples on the apple. He also took initiative to produce juice and jam using apples that have bruises.

The case of Modani Fruit Garden is a good example of promoting economic activities utilizing existing natural and human resources in the localities, and definitely Mr. Taniguchi is a good leader to take initiatives for various actions based on such local resources. His activities also show possibilities for agriculture activities to be linked with other sectors and other place especially the city residents so that they raise interest in having beautiful fruit garden.

On February 18, 2007, a seminar was held at “Hida Earth Wisdom Center” located in the city, and Indonesian development practitioners shared their experiences with the local people. They are the facilitators and local experts of PKPM project (a JICA technical cooperation project to strengthen community development facilitation in East Indonesia), and all of them had visited the city once as a part of training program. After coming back from Takayama, they started facilitation in their own villages. In the seminar, they expressed what they learned from Takayama, and how they applied the learning. One of the interesting learning is that they were very much impressed with the culture and tradition preserved in Takayama. The participants told that they need to construct own locality based on local culture, tradition, and what they have in their communities. The participants also emphasized the importance of knowing about the target communities before starting facilitation, because in Takayama, they learned meanings of local community for the life of the human beings.

Rie Yamada and Makoto Nahagata (i-i-network, Japan)

What is community? Why is it important? – from experience of traditional communities in Japan

Local community has been an essential part of everyday life for most of human beings. Everyone belongs to a certain local community, and the community provides her/him with necessary basis for survival, production, re-production, and identity. Considering the essential importance of communities, there have been many development projects implemented with a title of “community-based”. Those projects ask community people to participate in and to take initiatives for sustainable actions.

However, as modernization prevails everywhere in the world, many development planners or practitioners who are expected to facilitate community-based projects, have been losing the strong ties with their original communities. Most of them now live in cities, and day by day, they become busy for leading “modernized” life that has nothing to do with local traditional communities. As a result, those development planners or practitioners are losing knowledge and perspectives regarding traditional local communities.

Moreover, traditional communities themselves are now rapidly changing because of influence by modernization. Although local communities are still core of their lives, and many development projects aim at strengthening or utilizing resources in the community, it is not easy for many local communities to maintain traditional norms, regulations, and relations among them.

Therefore, it is highly important for all the development practitioners or planners who try to facilitate or mediate community-based development actions through their projects to understand meanings and functions of community for human beings, to realize threats to traditional communities, and to think about how important those communities are for the future of all the people. In this article, it is expected to provide you with some perspectives on local communities based on the history and present situation of Japanese communities.

Three functions of community

1) Between Human and Nature

From the very beginning, human beings have been utilizing natural resources for their survival. All kinds of food materials come from natural resources, such as forests, grass lands, agriculture fields, rivers, and the sea. Water, an essential material for both human lives and agriculture production, is also a product of nature. Besides foodstuff, people also need natural resources for their clothes and shelters. In other words, human beings require natural resources for their livelihood and production.

One of the important functions of community for human beings is managing these natural resources collectively in a sustainable way. If any kind of natural resources is over-exploited beyond the carrying capacity of the nature, that resource will be exhausted, and the livelihood of the people depending on that natural resource will be threatened as a result. In order to avoid such situation, and to be able to utilize natural resources sustainably, people constructed systems of natural resource management. This is one of the important functions of local community.

In Japan, many communities have been maintaining “Iriai” system as a collective natural resource management system. Iriai is generally defined as “a system or organization where the local residents of a certain area (usually a community or several communities) jointly utilize and manage mountains, rivers and land.” Concrete rules and practices of iriai vary from place to place, and change from time to time, yet the unique characteristics of iriai practices are:

1) Consensus by all

All important decisions have to be made unanimously. If any household opposes a plan, it will be cancelled or tabled.

2) Common property for the people living in a community

Only those who live in the community have iriai rights. In other words, once a person leaves the community, he/she looses his/her right.

3) Equal access, equal responsibility

Every household in a community, rich or poor, has iriai rights; equal access to use and equal management responsibility.

Based on this iriai system described above, many community people in Japan have been maintaining forest and other natural resources vital for their livelihood collectively in a sustainable way.

2) Between Human and Human

It can not be denied that every human being requires other’s help for his/her daily life. Usually, it is your family members who provide necessary help for you. However, it is not enough to have assistance from family members if it is beyond the capacity of your family members, such as repairing roof materials, planting rice in a short period, or at a time of marriage or funeral ceremonies.

In Japan, there is a system called “Yui” that facilitate mutual help among community members. In many traditional communities, there are small groups consisting of neighboring families (yui) that provide mutual help for farm work that requires intensive input of labors such as planting and harvesting rice. There are also yui for repairing houses especially thatched roofs, and yui for funerals. Usually in those yui practices, there is no exchange of money between those who receive and who provide helps. It is basically reciprocity relations among community members.

There is another practice of mutual help in traditional communities of Japan, called “Kou”. Kou is a kind of self-help groups where community people gather for particular objectives. “Ise-kou” or “Fuji-kou” are groups for regular savings in order to accumulate funds for implementing tour to traditional sacred places such as Ise-shrine or Fuji-mountain. There are other kous mainly for economic activities such as “tanomoshi-kou” that is one of good examples of ROSCA (Rotated Savings and Credit Association).

By observing such practices of mutual help in the traditional communities of Japan, we can conclude that human beings require communities that provide mutual help relations among members for their everyday life, production, and re-production.

3) Between Human and God(s)

Apart from materialistic point of view, communities are important for human beings because they provide mental or psychological security for us. Sense of belongings, or feeling of “being at home” is important for most of us to maintain own identities. Of course, there are various groups or organizations that provide sense of belongings such as working place (companies or offices), schools, social organizations, or NPOs (Non Profit Organizations). However, for most of the people especially living in the developing countries, local communities where they were born or live for long are the core of identities. Even the people living in the cities feel that they belong to original local communities where they are from, and in long holidays, we observe that millions of city dwellers rush to their home villages or towns in many countries.

Why do the people feel communities as the sense of belongings, or the source of identity? It might be tradition, culture and history commonly shared among the community members. And such tradition or culture makes community people feel that they are not alone, connected with not only each others, but with super-natural, spirits, or god(s).

In Japan, “Matsuri” (festival) of “Uji-gami-sama” (locally believed guardian deity) is one of the important annual events for traditional communities. There are various ceremonies and rituals for praising their Uji-gami that have to be followed by the community members, and every part of community has particular role to play in the festival. By participating in the matsuri, community members can strengthen sense of belongings, and also feel strong tie with the nature, history, ancestors, and supernatural in their community.

Rules and regulations shared and followed

Those three functions of community described above require specific rules and regulations that are commonly accepted and followed by the community members. In the case of Iriai forests in Japan, there are various kinds of rules in each community to control usage of forest so that the natural resources in the forest are maintained in a sustainable way. For example, there are various agreements in the community when and how the people get into the forest to collect NTFPs (Non Timber Forest Products) such as nuts, berries, edible wild plants, or fuel woods. Sometimes, there is an agreement that the poorer families are given priority to collect such NTFPs for their livelihood before other families come in.

When community members discuss about any decision regarding rules or regulations of the community, there should be specific decision making system for each community. In Japan, “Yoriai” is a common practice of decision making system in traditional communities. Usually, all the heads of households in the community attend a yoriai meeting, and they discuss various kinds of issues. In traditional yoriai meetings, it is not uncommon that they spend whole day or more to reach conclusion. In general, the decision of yoriai meeting is taken unanimously, not by majority vote. It is more important that all the participants share experiences and views among each others, and finally reach accommodation based on all the participants’ views and opinions. After the decision of yoriai meeting, all the members are expected to follow the rules or regulations, and there is also a system of sanctions or penalties for those who do not obey them.

The above described functions of communities might be specific characteristic of Japan based on particular historical and cultural background. There must be many variations of real communities in terms of their functions and internal systems reflecting various socio-economic and cultural background of each community. However, as we see the very nature of human beings, it is inevitable that we require any kinds of “groups of people” that manage relations between human and nature, human and human, and human and the supernatural. And for a long time, local communities have been playing much important role for such functions, and therefore they have maintained own system of decision making.

Decline of local community

In many countries including Japan, functions of local communities described above have already declined as modernization started and has taken deep root in the society. Even in the developing countries, ties of traditional communities have started to weaken as western life style and urbanization took place. Why local communities decline as a society is modernized? If we look into the world history, we can find two major factors that characterize progress of modernization; nation state and market economy.

1) Nation State to become absolute power to manage resources

Modern state is characterized to have centralized government that holds absolute power to control over resources within its territory. In Japan, when “Meiji” government took over from feudal “Edo” shogun government in the late 19^th Century, it introduced a policy to abolish iriai system, and tried to convert community-owned forests to be either national properties or private ones. Main objective for the policy was to ensure taxation from land owners, but it also aimed at utilizing natural resources in the country much more effectively in order to achieve rapid economic development. Some of the forests that had become national properties were then sold off to private companies to start mining or manufacturing factories. Such practices of nation states to nationalize and commercialize community properties still occur in many of the developing countries.

Nation states also created “citizens” who hold identity to the nation. In order to integrate all the areas within the territory at early times, and then to compete with other nation states especially at the era of imperialism, it requires its citizens to feel strong identity to the nation. Later on, when democracy became common value for the nation states, the governments (both central and local) have become entities that hold sole responsibilities to protect their citizens and to provide necessary services to them.

All those things above have influenced functions of local communities. They lost rights to manage various natural resources originally owned and controlled by the communities, and as a result, collective actions in the communities based on own decision making system have also declined. Creation of national citizens also influenced sense of belongings of the community people who now feel more identity to broader entities such as nation, ethnicity, or even “global citizens”. And finally, introduction of “welfare state” that provides necessary services to its citizens has weakened functions of mutual help in the local communities.

2) Market Economy to generate “individuals based on economic value”

Another driving force of modernization, market economy, has also given crucial influence on the functions of local communities. It requires a system of “absolute right of property” that enables free economic interaction among the individuals. Communal lands were converted into private individual properties so that people can easily sell and buy in order to gain economic benefit. Again, control over common property resources by local communities was demolished and people became more individualistic to pursue economic gain. Community people who sought cash income migrated into the cities and became labor force for industries, and as a result, community ties and the system of mutual help were destroyed.

In addition to those physical impacts on community functions, penetration of market economy gave deep influence on the values of traditional local communities. In the world of market economy, everything is measured by economic rationality. It does not give value on voluntary actions if they do not produce immediate economic benefit. Mutual help, or reciprocity relations among community members are considered not to be economically rational. People have become much busy in pursuing individual economic benefit rather than giving time for “un-productive” or “non-profitable” activities of local communities.

Yet, we need something similar to communities

Thus, as nation state and market economy are the two key driving forces for modern world, we have to admit that the decline of local community is inevitable. However, is there nothing remains for local communities to play any role or function in the modern or post-modern world of globalization?

The answer will be “no”, if you look into the present situation of Japanese society. There revealed hundred thousands of the cases of “Ijime” (physical or mental violence by friends especially at schools) throughout Japan, and many school kids commit suicide because of suffering Ijime. Prevailing “Hikikomori” (shutting oneself in own room and cutting off all the relations with others) by younger generation has also become one of the major concern in the society, but schools or even parents can not find out effective ways to deal with those problems.

On the other hand, as the portion of aged persons is continuously rising, number of “dokkyo-rojin” (aged person living alone) increases rapidly, and incidents of “kodoku-shi” (dying alone without being found for long time) frequently happen in many cities and towns. People in Japan become more and more individualistic, and even nuclear families can not remain to be a final shelter for the members.

In general, it becomes obvious that the government of Japan (central and local) can not provide all the necessary public services to the people because of financial deficit and limitation of their resources. On the other hand, private sector can not cover all the necessity of the people because it has to compete in the global market to gain profit. It is because of such limitation of both public and private sectors to provide sufficient services that the non-profit and non-government organizations (NPOs and NGOs) are increasingly playing important roles in Japanese society.

Yes, other than nation state and market economy, we need something similar to the traditional local communities that are able to manage common property resources, to facilitate mutual help, and to give us sense of belongings. It can be a revival or re-construction of local communities, or it can also be a new types of communities, such as NPOs now being much active in Japan.

Makoto Nagahata (i-i-network, Japan)