PBL102

Aya-Final Report
Marika Tanaka, Mone Ooka, Maya Takeda

What We Learned in Aya
Aya town is located in Miyazaki. There is a laurel forest city, and 80% of the area isforest. It is a small town with a population of about 7,000. Aya Town focuses on organic farmingand crafts and is developing as a UNESCO Eco Park town. Aya town built the “Tezukuri
Honmono center”, which sells agricultural and livestock products produced from organic
farming. It is intended to lead to the protection of rich natural produce and promote the health ofpeople. The laurel forest in Aya Town was protected by the strong insistence of Mayor Goda.
People were divided over whether to prioritize economics or environmental protection. After thetree trimming plan was canceled, the laurel forest became a national park. Aya town became
known as a tourist city because the spring water was selected as one of the top "100 Exquisite
Well Waters" and the "Teruha Suspension Bridge" was built. Aya town is called “Handmade craftvillage” because there are many craftsmen living there practicing, e.g., woodworking, dyeing,weaving, ceramics, and glasswork. Since Aya Town is designated as an "industrial model area",
they actively invited craftsmen to live and work there. Now there are nearly 40 workshops
located in the small town of Aya. Furthermore, in Aya Town, they held various events such as
marathons, Hinamatsuri, and horse racing to attract tourists. However, the finances of Aya town
are dwindling, and it is the lowest in Miyazaki. In addition, the population decline due to thedeclining birthrate and a growing proportion of elderly people is a serious problem. The decreasein the number of tourists due to the influence of the coronavirus has further damaged theeconomy of Aya town.
Summary of Fieldwork Experience
We visited Aya for 2 days and 1 night. We stayed at the Aya UNESCO Eco Park Center,
which opened in April of 2018, as a base facility for providing information in the naturalenvironment and interacting with nature focused on the Aya Biosphere Reserve. The first day, weattended a lecture by government officials. We were able to learn a lot about Aya’s rich history aswell as some specific problems of the current situation. Of particular importance were hearing
the thoughts directly from the people, which can only be known by going to Aya and engaging
with the people there. Three things impressed us in the lecture. First, great efforts are made basedon the basic idea of town development, which is “Aya is a town where the people coexist withnature.” Second, keeping the soil healthy and growing healthy organic vegetables is very
important to them. By making the soil healthy they believe they are working on the policy of
local production for local consumption, making healthy vegetables, and building a healthy body,
medical expenses can be reduced, and they are conducting recycling-type global economicactivities. Third, they are setting goals for buying and producing agriculture and aiming for aself-sufficient life. We were able to think about nature more deeply than before. This particularly
made us think about some of the things we had forgotten in our extremely convenient world.
That night, we made curry and rice using vegetables from Aya Town. On the second day, weheard a lecture by Mr. Genta at Aya Castle Genta Dyeing and Weaving Studio. Mr. Genta statedthat work is something that we create ourselves, and we thought it was a wonderful concept to beable to create something fun and do it as a job. After making spoons, we went on a tour of Aya
town. We learned a lot about Aya through the two days there, which changed our view of Aya. It
was a great experience to learn not only about Aya Town but also about how to live alongsidenature in the global environment.
Main Points of the Presentation
We made two suggestions for Aya. Firstly, we suggested making an international schoolin Aya. During the fieldwork in Aya, they stressed they would be facing a major problem of ashortage of craftsmen and farmers in the future. By making school this problem could beaddressed because it is a good way to draw craftsmen to sustain traditional crafts in Aya anddevelop young farmers through agricultural courses. In addition, we think it is more effective tocollaborate with MIC because MIC offers some advantages such as recruitment of international
students. MIC supports students from all over the world and it is good to make a school where
we can learn traditional crafts and agriculture in Aya. Secondly, we suggested establishing asatellite office of MIC in Aya. Recently, remote work has become more common in our society.
Moreover, people want to work in rural areas to refresh and work more productivity. In addition,
the Japanese government has also publicly recommended setting up satellite offices in rural

areas. We think we can resolve the population problem by setting up satellite offices becausesome people want to live in the countryside instead of urban cities like Osaka and Tokyo.
Furthermore, an artist-in-residence system is a good way for Aya to facilitate this.
Artist-in-residence is a system in which artists of all kinds stay in a certain place for a certain
period of time to create artistic work. This activity is already being promoted in some
prefectures. We believe by attracting artists, a new community can be created and opportunities
for many more people to know about Aya Town will be generated as a result. However, changes
will need to be made to the network environment (or Internet infrastructure), particularly Wi-Fi
access, to attract artists and companies to Aya. Buildings will need to be provided for officespaces. Making use of unoccupied houses for offices was a suggestion made to accommodate
this initiative. The two suggestions described above are big tasks. It is understandable that it may
be difficult for the government officials of Aya town to commit completely. However, we hope
our ideas will contribute to the success of Aya’s future.
A Thought on how this Course can be Improved
This course included a lot of activities. More than usual, so we could join the discussion
positively. Also, we could actually go to Aya to find assignments and to communicate with Aya’speople. It was a very valuable experience for us. We really recommend this course for otherstudents next Fall semester. Because we can develop the skills of problem solving, discussion,and presentation. We feel this course is most effective to obtain those skills. We want thisprogram to continue because only two presentations are not enough to change Aya. We think it
would be even better if we could increase the number of classes and make it a long-term
program.