Although policies and ordinances to conserve and maintain urban green spaces for multiple ecosystem services, such as food security, local climate regulation, and biodiversity conservation exist, they are not necessarily associated with the concept of satoyama and satoumi. This part of the assessment intends to address this gap and use existing examples from other countries to facilitate the discussion of how good governance of satoyama and satoumi at a local or city level in Japan may be designed.
An assessment aimed to provide policy-makers with scientifically credible information on the values of ecosystem services provided by satoyama and satoumi for economic and human development, the Japan Satoyama Satoumi Assessment (JSSA), was initiated in Japan in 2006. The final report was published in 2012 (Duraiappah et al. 2012). The JSSA primarily focused on Japan on a national and regional scale, but also included a local urban and peri-urban scale. In addition to discussing changes in ecosystem services, the JSSA also covered institutional mechanisms, socio-economic challenges, public participation, and associated appraisal of biodiversity governance.
The JSSA shows how satoyama and satoumi emphasize sustainable use of ecosystems in order to support the provisioning of ecosystem services for human well-being. However, in practice, the general ecosystem management and governance discussions have thus far mostly focused on regional and local levels, whereas the discussions on satoyama and satoumi in the JSSA focused on national and subnational levels. There is thus a need to develop strategies that address local management and governance of urban satoyama and satoumi in Japan.
Based on the findings in the JSSA, four aspects that may facilitate the development of local governance in support of urban satoyama and satoumi are discussed: (1) effectiveness of biodiversity policy; (2) coordination between development and biodiversity and ecosystem services conservation; (3) available financial mechanisms to support long term implementation; and (4) capability to build up partnerships and encourage participation. Furthering the discussion on strategies that may improve the dynamic balance between societies and ecosystems in cities, this assessment draws upon examples from Nagoya, Japan; eThekwini/Durban, South Africa; and the UK (Europe).
8.3.1 Strategies for Effective Biodiversity Conservation Policies
Biodiversity conservation is a national goal in Japan as clearly defined in the Japanese National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plan (NBSAP) (the Fifth Edition has been recently launched on September 2012). The Japanese NBSAP has explicitly taken satoyama and satoumi and urban green spaces into account but separately of each other. However, satoyama and satoumi landscapes, whether rural or urban, are thereby still treated as separate from urban nature and lack conceptual alignment in policies. For example, the mosaic characteristics of forests and agricultural lands make it difficult to categorize the satoyama into one category of land classification. Local ordinances have been proposed by prefectures and cities in Japan to promote conservation, regeneration and utilization of satoyama since 2000 (Takahashi et al. 2012). However, regulations and policies at a local level tend to favor economic growth and development before protection of existing urban satoyama and satoumi. In this context, the loss of natural and semi-natural areas, which are the basis of satoyama and satoumi, is inevitable without effective legal or non-legal binding instruments aimed at protection of the natural landscapes.
Following a segmented governance structure, national policies and laws in Japan are largely separated from the local governance and thus provide little support for satoumi and satoyama, although it is recognized in the national guidelines that an integrated approach is needed for managing such a system in a sustainable manner (Takahashi et al. 2012). Legal responses have been respectively developed to address the need of sustaining satoyama and satoumi landscape at national levels. The conservation of satoyama in Japan is promoted under the newly established Act on the Promotion of Conservation for Biodiversity Activities through the Cooperation among Regional Diversified Actors (enforced in 2011). However, the development of specific legal strategies for conservation of satoumi and by that marine biodiversity, is still only in the early stages. Management of coastal areas is marked by a highly complex web of a wide range of stakeholders from fisheries, construction, nature conservation, and recreation sectors, among others.
An international and seemingly promising method is the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA), which since 2004 is mandatory under the SEA Directive for the member states of the European Union to conduct in selected plans and programs. SEA originates from the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) of the USA in 1970, and has since mostly been developed and implemented in European and North American countries (Dalal-Clayton and Sadler 2005). SEA is designed to evaluate the possible accumulative environmental consequences of proposed policies and plans, and thus ensure already in the early stages of decision making that biodiversity support is considered (ICLEI 2010). Although SEA systems vary considerably between countries or even cases, the concept has rapidly evolved and been applied to public plans and programs, such as land use, transport, energy, waste and agriculture, to support sustainable development.
In the past decades, the concept of SEA has been introduced in several East Asian countries, including China, South Korea, Taiwan, and Japan. As in many East Asian countries, the applications in Japan remain limited, but some SEA components have already been implemented as local governments use the SEA to screen environment-related plans and programmes (Dalal-Clayton and Sadler 2005). SEA can provide an opportunity to include satoyama and satoumi approaches into development processes, if the SEA system would be further developed and adapted to a Japanese social-ecological context. For example, the importance of using traditional knowledge for environmental management, as well as the interaction between human maintenance activities and their consequent ecosystem functioning will have to be highlighted and valued in the SEA.
8.3.2 Development That Supports Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services Conservation
Laws, regulations, and policies proposed for green space conservation and the sustainable use of natural resources have shown to some extent to contribute to the maintenance of satoyama and satoumi landscapes (Takahashi et al. 2012). However, implementation and long-term management of satoyama and satoumi in and around cities is complicated by the increasing competition for land in Japan. One of the key challenges to make satoyama and satoumi an integral part of the urban landscape is thus to find strategies that can balance land-use for financial prosperity, with the implementation and conservation of satoyama and satoumi. Another key challenge is to design plans and strategies of which satoyama and satoumi are integral parts.
Although plans and strategies that aimed to include biodiversity and ecosystem services in urban development have been designed, for example a Master Plan for Greenery, their relation to urban satoyama and satoumi is not specified. Their full potential to support satoyama and satoumi is thus still to be realized.
One way to meet the limitations of current plans may be to design more comprehensive development plans that systematically coordinate biodiversity protection and development initiatives. Taking the UK’s planning system as an example, the Biodiversity Supplementary Planning Documents (BSPDs) are developed in conjunction with local development documents. A BSPD provides explicit guidance to actors such as developers, households and planners on protecting, creating and improving biodiversity during the development process (SCDC 2012). Another systematic planning approach that facilitates biodiversity and development coordination is the South African Integrated Development Plans (IDPs) which are mandatory for all local authorities in South Africa to prepare and continue over 5 years. By aiming to coordinate the work between different sectors, such as housing, environments and transportation, the IDPs can provide a cross-sectoral planning mechanism that integrates development with conservation of biodiversity and ecosystem services (eThekwini Municipality 2007). These planning systems take biodiversity and ecosystem services into account at the early stage of local development and stand better chances to influence and to be compatible with other sectoral plans.
The BSPDs and the IDPs represent two top-down planning measures that might facilitate the integration of satoyama and satoumi proposition throughout existing development frameworks and influence sectoral plans. However, both of these measures are relatively new and it is too early to conclude which measure is more applicable in the Japanese context. More studies to address the characteristics of Japanese planning and institutional systems are needed.
In an interesting bottom-up development, on the other hand, a revival movement of satoyama landscapes since the late 1980s, has increasingly drawn public attention and interest to nature conservation and protection. This movement has been especially active in municipalities containing urban satoyama and satoumi, with several tens of thousands municipal inhabitants, located within approximately 50 km from urban centers (Saito 2005). The activities focus mostly on the values of cultural services such as education and recreation. This hints to that supporting cross-scale planning mechanisms where urban inhabitants are involved in planning and management, can promote urban satoyama and satoumi on several levels.
8.3.3 Available Financial Mechanisms to Support Long-Term Implementation
International initiatives to give ecosystem services monetary values have for example estimated the urban plantations in Canberra, Australia, at a combined energy reduction, pollution mitigation and carbon sequestration value of US$20–67 million during the period 2008–2012 (Brack 2002). If satoyama and satoumi can credibly be given a monetary value, this can be an incentive to support the conservation of satoyama and satoumi landscapes in Japan (e.g., TEEB 2011).
Several economic interventions have already been proposed by Japanese local governments to mitigate or reverse the decline in satoyama and satoumi. The interventions include taxation of illegal industrial waste dumping, encouragement of the use of biomass energy from thinning woods of satoyama, and direct payments for stewardship, i.e. management aimed to maintain and conserve the rural natural resources. The implementation of the incentives has, however, been limited due to the decreasing production value from agricultural, forestry and fishery activities (Takahashi et al. 2012).
Voluntary involvement plays an increasingly large role for maintenance of satoyama and satoumi, such as payment for ecosystem services, stewardship sharing with citizens, and certification systems for products (Takahashi et al. 2012). A case in point is the Greenification Certificate System initiated in Nagoya, Japan in 2008 (cf. Kohsaka 2010). Under the overall framework of the System of Greening Areas, the Greenification Certificate System serves as a voluntary tool by which private landowners receive lower interest rates on loans from local banks, while conserving or creating green spaces when they develop their land. This experimental tool is expected to encourage more green spaces, including trees, green facades and green roofs, in private owned properties and might be useful for enhancing biodiversity in densely urbanized cities.
8.3.4 Capacities to Build Partnerships and Encourage Participation
As human activities play a vital role in the management of satoyama and satoumi, participation from citizens, local non-profit organisations (NPOs) and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) should be acknowledged by decision makers and in planning as a key component for achieving sustainable management of urban satoyama and satoumi. Involving a wide range of partners, such as government agencies, academia, conservation groups, local businesses, amateur naturalists and private corporations, can play a key role in defining priorities in satoyama and satoumi management and sustain it over time.
One international example of a successful public-private partnership that may serve as inspiration for cities in Japan, is the Buffelsdraai Community Reforestation Project in South Africa. The eThekwini municipality and the Wildlands Conservation Trust together engage local communities to create tree nurseries at their homes and provide tree seedlings for reforestation. By selling seedlings, participants receive credit notes to exchange of food, basic goods and school fees at regular tree stores in participating communities (eThekwini Municipality 2012).
In Japan, Kawasaki City developed a Conservation Management Plan to engage citizens in stewardship activities of designated conservation areas and to reduce the conservation burden in terms of labor and expenditure on landowners. The city also builds a partnership with universities to encourage research on urban ecosystem conservation areas and to open up a dialogue between academics, policy-makers and managers. The capacity to build such cross-level and cross-sectoral partnerships where local inhabitants actively participate in the management of the urban green areas can prove to be critical in terms of creating and sustaining urban satoyama and satoumi (Chap. 27).