205

Integrated Assessment of Biodiversity andMulti-functionality of Satoyama Landscapes
Toshiya OKURO1*, Yuanmei JIAO2 and Shori YAMAMOTO3
1

Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences, The University of Tokyo
1-1-1 Yayoi, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-8657, Japan
2
School of Tourism and Geography Sciences, Yunnan Normal University
298, December 1st Street, Kunming 650092, P.R. China
3
National Institute for Agro-Environmental Sciences
3-1-3, Kannondai, Tsukuba-shi, Ibaraki 305-8604, Japan*e-mail: aokuro@mail.ecc.u-tokyo.ac.jp

Abstract
We devised indicators to assess the biodiversity of satoyama environments and developed models toassess their regulating services at a nationwide scale using a common database. Because of a lack of information on species distribution and farming systems in Japan, we used indirect habitat information such as land
use/cover and assessed biodiversity by calculating JOIN values, which can be used as indicators of mixturesof two land uses (e.g., paddy-forest, paddy-built-up area) calculated by land-use grid data. We also developed
assessment models of regulating services by collecting grid data such as “digital national land information”
and modifying existing models, and measured the values of several regulating services. These values werecompared among the land classes of the Rural Landscape Information System (RuLIS), a survey/information
system developed by the National Institute for Agro-Environmental Sciences (NIAES), with the aim ofmonitoring, analyzing and assessing changes in biodiversity and wildlife habitats in agro-ecosystems effectively at various spatial scales. The results suggested that the spatial and temporal conditions and trends inbiodiversity and regulating services could be assessed effectively by using RuLIS land class categories.
Therefore, these assessment models for biodiversity and ecosystem services, both of which are assessed asfunctions of land use, could contribute to the creation of land-use change scenarios and estimation ofenvironmental changes by being coupled with the spatial hierarchical framework of RuLIS.
Key words: biodiversity, land use, multi-functionality, provisioning services, regulating services

1. Introduction“Satoyama” is a Japanese word used to refer to themosaic of mixed coppice forests, rice paddy fields, upland fields, grasslands, streams, ponds, reservoirs for
irrigation and settlements that make up the traditional
rural landscape of Japan (Takeuchi et al., 2003).
Satoyama areas have traditionally been maintained
according to distinctive local management and farming
methods that have been passed down over the generations, and they have contributed to the rich biodiversity
and the provision of various ecosystem services which
support people’s livelihoods (Duraiappah et al., 2012).
Although social, political and economic changes
since the 1960s, such as agricultural innovations, the fuelrevolution, the shortage of young farmers and increasing
globalization, have caused declines in ecosystem services
and biodiversity in the satoyama, recent socio-economicand environmental situations have raised people’s
Global Environmental Research
16/2012: 205-212
printed in Japanawareness of energy and food securities and the potential
values of the satoyama. In other words, increasingly
serious environmental issues are, in effect, creating
opportunities for promoting the re-evaluation and use ofdomestic biological resources (Takeuchi, 1996; Okuro,2008).
In accordance with these movements, new land use
models based on traditional systems of local resource
utilization and management have recently been attracting
increasing attention throughout the world as models to
support the creation of sustainable societies (Jiao et al.,2012). The Japanese government has also proposedcreating national strategies for conservation and restoration of societies in harmony with nature and developing
global strategies with the aim of rebuilding a soundhuman-nature relationship typified by the satoyama(Japanese Government, 2007). In the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) too, the satoyama and satoumi(local coastal waters) were chosen as a target for©2012 AIRIES206

T. OKURO et al.

sub-global assessment (SGA) and their future was analyzed in line with several scenarios based on the MA
assessment framework (Duraiappah et al., 2012).
It is vital to the establishment of a new societal model
to come up with a new land use system which enables
sustainable resource use without reducing natural values,
based on integrated assessment of biodiversity and ecosystem services. Development of research and technology related to ecosystem conservation and resource use
in the satoyama such as biodiversity conservation,
maintenance and improvement of multi-functionality inagricultural lands and promotion of the utilization of
woody biomass as materials and for energy, have so far
been conducted separately (e.g., Iiyama, 2003; Takahashi,2012). However, little is known about the conditions andtrends in biodiversity and ecosystem services or theirinter-linkage, which could contribute to an integrated
quantitative assessment and development of land use
models at both the nationwide and local scales.
In this paper we first summarize the features of
biodiversity and ecosystem services, specifically focusing on the regulating services in satoyama environments
in terms of land use/management systems, because manyother studies have mainly focused on their provisioning
and cultural services (Takeuchi et al., 2003) but few havefocused on their regulating services in spite of strong
interlinkages with other ecosystem services (Kato et al.,
1997; Okuro et al., 2012). We then introduce a new integrated assessment model for biodiversity and regulating
services, both of which are assessed as functions of landuse, to show how these models could contribute tobuilding land-use change scenarios and supporting sounddecision-making about future land use in the satoyama.

2. Features of Biodiversity and Ecosystem
Services in the Satoyama in Terms of Land
Use Systems
2.1 Features of biodiversity in the satoyama
The most important feature of satoyama ecosystems
from the perspective of their biota is the dynamic systemof relationships sustained by human activity or disturbance. Natural disturbance is known to play an importantrole in renewing biota, but in satoyama ecosystems
where humans have eliminated natural disturbance,
human disturbance through agriculture has tended toassume the same role (Moriyama, 1997). Another major
feature of satoyama ecosystems is the way that their
many different land use components (habitats), such as
paddy fields, dry crop fields, woodlands, coppices
around homesteads, water channels, reservoirs for irrigation, and secondary grasslands, are distributed in apatchwork mosaic to create the typical satoyama landscape (Duraiappah et al., 2012). Even if local populations
have disappeared within a patch as a result of disturbance,
those populations will recover if the same species areable to invade from surrounding patches. There are also
some species called multi-habitat users that utilize a
combination of different habitats within the patchwork

such as the gray-faced buzzard (Butastur indicus;
Takeuchi et al., 2003). The biodiversity of the satoyama
is thus characterized by factors related to land use andlandscape structure, such as the diversity of land use, thediversity of habitats created by human disturbance, andthe balance between recovery from disturbance and the
movement and supply of species.
Changes in agriculture and rural communities sincethe 1960s have dramatically transformed the nature ofhuman impacts on satoyama areas and their biodiversity.
There are two opposing aspects to this transformation,
abandonment and intensification (Okuro, 2008). Thesechanges have in turn led to an increasing homogenizationand fragmentation of the formerly highly diversified
habitats of satoyama ecosystems. Species closely associated with environments at an early or intermediatestage of succession are particularly vulnerable to theimpacts of homogenization of habitats, while species
with low mobility are easily affected by fragmentation of
habitat. This homogenization, decrease, and fragmentation of habitat is also leading to a decrease in ecotones,
transition areas between adjacent but different plantcommunities, which are very valuable habitats from thebiodiversity perspective (Kusumoto et al., 2006).
2.2 Features of regulating services in the satoyama
As described above, biodiversity in the satoyama is
the result of rational modification of the ecosystemthrough agriculture and forestry, or in other words, theresult of the sustainable use of ecosystem services.
Ecosystem services can be defined as the benefits thatpeople obtain from ecosystems, and include provisioning
services, regulating services, cultural services and supporting services (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment,
2005). In this paper we focus on regulating services
which in the satoyama in many cases are integrallyinter-linked with the provisioning services they provide
through agriculture, forestry and fishery industries.
Although many previous satoyama studies have treatedprovisioning services, little is known about regulating
services.
Generally, agricultural activities that cause drastictransformation of nature, provide enhanced, short-time
provisioning services, while negatively affecting regulating services. Conversely, in the case of the satoyama,
where human interventions in the natural environment
and agricultural, forestry and fishery businesses havebeen continuously conducted in the proper manner,
regulating services may have been provided so as tosupplement provisioning ones. For example, the surface
collapse prevention function of terrace paddy fields andtheir levees is a function that may be exerted by discovering collapse at the initial stage and repairing it. The soil
erosion prevention function of paddy fields is also very
high because of the reduced impact of rainfall on the soil
surface under an irrigated state. However, when cultivation ceases, rapid permeation of rainfall into groundwater
sources occurs following heavy rains, subsequently
leading to erosion and surface collapse (Okuro et al.,Assessment of Biodiversity and Multi-functionality

2001; Arita et al., 2003).
Maintenance of the regulating services of erosion
prevention provided by forests in the satoyama is influenced by forest management, such as cutting, tree planting and thinning of planted forests. Even in the case of aplanted forest, if the forest is soundly managed, then theservices it provides can be almost the same as those froma natural forest. However, negligent management andchanges in forest physiognomy have impaired these
services.
2.3 Necessity of integrated assessment of biodiversity and ecosystem services in the satoyama
From the above-mentioned results, it is clear that land
abandonment may be a major driver of reduction of bothbiodiversity and ecosystem services as well as intensification, because biodiversity and these services are maintained through the land management associated with
agricultural production (Okuro and Takeuchi, 2010).
Given the current status of agriculture and rural communities, it would of course be hardly feasible to manage
40% of Japan’s land area as it has been managed to datejust in order to conserve biodiversity (Takeuchi et al.,2003).
However, the satoyama has not always remained exactly the same for very long (Yokohari and Kurita, 2003).
This suggests that rather than simply reconstructing thepast and attracting the flora and fauna that once populateda particular satoyama area, efforts to restore satoyama
ecosystems should focus on examining those ecosystems
in the light of local history to develop mechanisms for
new sustainable uses of their biological resources that
preserve their rich biodiversity. Creating sound resource-circulating, low-carbon and nature-harmonious
societies will require recognizing the societal value ofsatoyama ecosystem services tailored to new needs, andwill require the building of local land use systems forbenefiting from those services over the long term. A vital
aspect of ecosystem restoration based on the above
viewpoint is for stakeholders to draw up a vision for their
future and share it as their own societal goal. They thenneed to assess the biodiversity and ecosystems from theperspective of how well ecosystem services corresponding to those societal goals are being expressed, and thenimplement an adaptive management of the ecosystem
according to their findings. Therefore, developing integrated assessment tools, as shown below, may contributeto supporting scientific decision making when selecting
the best goal from among multiple land use scenarios(Goldstein et al., 2012).

3. Identifying Biodiversity Indicators andDeveloping Assessment Methods
In Western countries, where there has long been muchinterest in biodiversity, and where there has been muchdiscussion on the relationship between agriculture andbiodiversity, the approach deemed effective for assessing
biodiversity in agricultural ecosystems is one which207

integrates three types of information: (1) habitat information based primarily on land cover, (2) information on
species distribution, and (3) farming system information(EEA/UNEP, 2004; Samoy et al., 2007; Okuro et al.,2008). Regarding information on species distribution in
Japan, government agencies are individually databasing
biodiversity-related information, an example being theJapan Integrated Biodiversity Information System(J-IBIS) provided by the Ministry of the Environment,
but there are problems such as limitations on the species
and regions covered and the continuity of data collection.
Also, there is not enough farming system information
pertaining to nationwide-level agricultural biodiversity.
Under current circumstances it seems that it would beappropriate to perform assessments based on habitat
information, mainly land cover. We therefore began bycollecting land cover data. Keeping in mind considerations such as future general use and integration with datafrom other institutions, as a habitat information databaseon biodiversity we prepared land-use gridded data withdifferent periods, assembled on a standard grid squaresystem as digital national land information.
We then devised indicators to assess biodiversity ofsatoyama environments. Various methods of assessing
biodiversity on the basis of land use and land cover havebeen devised (Yamamoto and Kusumoto, 2008), but noconsideration has been given to land use patterns, which
are especially important to the satoyama, as mentioned
above. At the same time, a number of assessment
methods that use spatial heterogeneity and mosaic
structures as indicators have been proposed, but there
have been few instances of these being applied on anationwide scale (Kadoya and Washitani, 2011). In thisstudy, therefore, we tried applying JOIN statistics, which
are indicators of the degree to which two land uses mix;
their units are sets of grid squares, and they are calculated
from the degree of agglomeration and contiguity of thegrid squares in the sets. Here we focused on the“paddy–forest JOIN value,” which is thought to indicate
the mosaic structure of the satoyama, and on the“paddy–built-up area JOIN value,” which is thought toindicate the extent of land transformation and urbanization. In other words, using units of the third grid, we
focused on the three land uses of rice paddies, forests,
and built-up areas within the land use data subdivided
into land-use grid squares of approx. 100 m × 100 m. We
then totaled the percentage of lines where two different
land uses (paddy and forest, or paddy and built-up area)adjoined, and calculated, respectively, the “paddy–forest
JOIN value” and “paddy–built-up area JOIN value”(Figs.1 and 2).
To reveal their regional characteristics and patterns ofchange, we used the “land class” system in the Rural
Landscape Information System (RuLIS), a survey/information system developed by the National Institute forAgro-Environmental Sciences (NIAES) with the aim ofmonitoring, analyzing and assessing changes in biodiversity and wildlife habitats in agro-ecosystems
effectively at various spatial scales (Ide et al., 2005).

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Fig. 1 Distribution and changes in paddy-forest JOIN value (%). Upper left: in 1976, lower left: in 2006,
right: change rate (%) between 1976 and 2006.

Fig. 2 Distribution and changes of paddy-built-up area JOIN value(%). Upper left: in 1976, lower left: in
2006, right: change rate (%) between 1976 and 2006.

RuLIS is composed of standardized survey methods andrural landscape types called land classes, which areclassified by means of a statistical method using factorsthat characterize agro-ecosystems (weather, soil, geology,
topography, vegetation and location convenience, all ofwhich are available as digital national land information).
These categories also have a spatial hierarchy, making it
possible to change the classification levels in accordancewith the spatial scale being used. Monitoring/assessment
based on those environmental stratifications is thus expected to detect spatial and temporal patterns of changes

more precisely.
We accordingly used the land classes (Classes 1
through 8) of the upper classification level (Level 3)suitable for the nationwide scale. Results indicated that
paddy–forest JOIN values were high for some mountainous and hilly landscape regions (Class 4) and for the
upland and lowland regions (Classes 5 through 8), while
the paddy–built-up area JOIN values were high for the
upland and lowland regions (Classes 5 through 8). Overall the paddy–forest JOIN value tended to decrease, while
the paddy–built-up area JOIN value tended to increase,Assessment of Biodiversity and Multi-functionality

8

(%)

(%)

12

6

1976

10

2006

8

4

209

1976
2006

6
4

2

2

0

0

1

2

3

4

5

Mountain/Hill

6

7

8

11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 71 72 73 74 75 76 81 82 83 84 85 86|

Upland/Lowland
Warm

Heavy snow

1

|

2

|

3

|

4

|

5

|

6

|

7

|

8

Fig. 3 Changes in paddy-forest JOIN values in different land classes of RuLIS. Left: upper level (8 classes), right: lower
level (64 classes). Numerical values from 1 to 8, and from 11 to 86 indicate land class categories at upper and lower
levels, respectively. Topographic and climatic factors relevant to each land class are shown along the horizontal axis.

8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0

(%)

14

(%)

1976

12

1976

2006

10

2006

8
6
4
2

1

2

3

Mountain/Hill
Heavy snow

4

5

6

7

Upland/Lowland
Warm

8

0
11 12 13 14 15 1617 18 21 22 23 24 2526 27 28 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 71 72 73 74 75 76 81 82 83 84 85 86

|

1

|

2

|

3

|

4

|

5

|

6

|

7

|

8

|

Fig. 4 Changes in paddy-built-up area JOIN values in different land classes of RuLIS. Left: upper level (8 classes), right:
lower level (64 classes). For the legend, see Fig. 3.

but we found that both rates of change were greatest inClasses 5 and 6, corresponding to suburban areas (Figs. 3
and 4). Analyzing JOIN statistics for each land class inthis way showed that it is possible to assess the regional
characteristics of biodiversity and its changes seen interms of spatial structures.
We then ascertained the relationship between nationwide and regional scales using RuLIS agricultural ecosystem categories, and investigated the validity of multiscale assessment using that method. We compiled
paddy–forest JOIN values and paddy–built-up area JOIN
values, as calculated above for the RuLIS upper classification level (8 classes), which corresponds to the nationwide scale, and the lower classification level (64 classes),
which corresponds to the local scale. We found withrespect to paddy–forest JOIN values that for the classes
which had high JOIN values in the upper level, theclasses in the lower level generally also had high JOIN
values. However, there were also classes in the lower
level with markedly high JOIN values regardless of the
JOIN values in the upper level (such as paddy-centeredlandscapes in lowlands and hilly areas, and upland valley
paddy landscapes in downstream areas) (Fig. 3). These
classes closely coincide with landscape areas found bypast studies to have high habitat potential (Kusumoto
et al., 2006). We also discerned the same tendency inpaddy–built-up area JOIN values (Fig. 4). Judging by theforegoing, it seems that using the hierarchical nature of

RuLIS agricultural ecosystem categories enables multiscale assessments of biodiversity in the satoyama on thenationwide and regional levels.

4. Developing an Assessment Model for
Regulating Services
As an aspect of the regulating services in agroecosystems, nationwide assessments of the environmental conservation functions of farmland and forestland
have thus far been carried out using digital national land
information and other data (Kato et al., 1997). But these
are relative assessments, based on results of calculations
for only one period, using class values from comparisonswith changes that occur in the event that farmland orforestland is abandoned. It is not possible to determinechange trends or the current state. At the same time,
because many of these function assessment models perform their calculations with assessment equations thathave land use as a variable, using land use data for
multiple time periods enables one to determine thetemporal and spatial changes of each function. We therefore started by obtaining digital national land information
for assessing environmental conservation functions, anddatabased it. We next used the content of available existing datasets to make assessment equations and category
score tables (assessment score tables are included in the
explanation of each environmental factor) for individual

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functions, and attempted to assess environmental conservation functions using the units of the third grid. The
following is an example of soil erosion prevention;

upland and lowland areas (Land Classes 5 through 8), we
confirmed that the tendency was especially marked inClass 7. We also found that even within the same class inupper levels, there were regional differences in distribution and change in the lower level (Fig. 5). Assuming thatmost of the variables such as soil properties, topography
and rainfall were nearly same between 1976 and 2006,
those changes would have been caused by land usechanges.
As this indicates, analyzing the above assessment
values of environmental conservation functions for eachland class makes it possible to perform multi-scaleassessments of the regional characteristics of regulating
services and their changes.

Soil Erosion Prevention (E) = E1×E2×E3×(E4+E5)/
2×100
where E1: rainfall intensity, E2: slope gradient, E3: landuse, E4: soil type, E5: soil texture. A model that wasdeveloped by the Soil Conservation Service of the UnitedStates Department of Agriculture (Wischmeier and Smith,1965) was applied to this study, according to Kato et al.
(1997). Although E itself is a dimensionless value for a
relative evaluation, the amount of soil loss (t/ha/year) can
also be roughly estimated by multiplying it by a factor of
2.5 in the case of Japan (National Land Agency of Japan,
1993)
Having obtained assessment values for multiple time
periods using the assessment equations and units of thethird grid, we next analyzed change trends using RuLIS
agricultural ecosystem categories, in the same way that
JOIN values were used in the biodiversity assessments, inorder to find regional characteristics and changes in patterns. On a nationwide scale, the assessment value totals
stayed at about the same level from 1976 to 2006, and we
found no large changes in regulating services. But on aregional scale we found that distribution and change
patterns were different (Fig. 5). For example, although
the soil erosion prevention function was low overall in
5(t/ha/year)
84

5. Integrating Assessment Models for
Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services
Building on the above-mentioned results, we calculated JOIN values and regulating services indicator values (soil loss amount estimated as the soil erosion
prevention function) for each of the RuLIS land classes atlower level (64 classes) and analyzed the relationshipbetween the two. The results showed that with the decline
in paddy–forest JOIN values, the soil erosion amount
could be divided into two groups of classes: classes inwhich the soil erosion amount decreased in mountainous/hilly areas and those in which it increased in upland/lowland areas (Fig. 6). Judging by the differences in(t/ha/year)

1976

7

1976

2006

6

2006

5

3

4

2

3

1

2
1

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

Mountain/Hill

7

0

8

11 12 13 1415 16 17 18 2122 23 24 25 2627 28 31 32 3334 35 36 37 3841 42 43 44 4546 47 48 51 5253 54 55 56 5758 61 62 63 6465 66 67 68 7172 73 7475 7681 82 8384 8586|

Upland/Lowland
Warm

Heavy snow

1

|

2

|

3

|

4

|

5

|

6

|

7

|

Fig. 5 Changes in soil erosion prevention service (amount of soil loss; t/ha/year) in different land classes of RuLIS. Note thatlower values indicate higher prevention services. For the legend, see Fig. 3.

10(t/ha/year)

10(t/ha/year)

Paddy‐built‐up area JOIN

Paddy‐forest JOIN
8

8

6

6

4

4

2

2

0
0

2

4

6

8

10

12

(%)
14

y = 0.534x ‐ 0.0406
R² = 0.6493

0
0

2

4

6

8

10

Fig. 6 Relationship between JOIN values and soil erosion prevention services at the lower level(64 classes) of RuLIS. Left: paddy-forest JOIN values, right: paddy-built-up area JOIN values.

(%)
12

8

|

Assessment of Biodiversity and Multi-functionality

the two groups’ geographical distributions, the former
was attributable to abandoned rice paddies returning toforests, while the latter was attributable to urbanization
due to conversion to housing lots and other uses. However, we need further analysis of change patterns of land
use for each land class to confirm drivers controllingthose trends. We were able to corroborate this with thesignificant positive correlation between the paddy–builtup area JOIN values and the soil erosion amount. On theother hand, the soil erosion amount tended to decline
uniformly as the paddy–forest JOIN value increased.
This suggests that progression of the paddy–forest
mosaic does not necessarily lead to a decline in regulating services (Fig. 6).
Our results indicate that integrated assessments of
biodiversity and ecosystem services are made possible byusing the shared variable of land use, shared datasets
such as “digital national land information” as a representative example, and the shared assessment units of
RuLIS land classes.

6. Conclusion
We developed a satoyama biodiversity assessment
method which uses land use as habitat information. Thisis the first such instance in Japan, which as yet has no
biological distribution information for agro-ecosystems,
in which satoyama biodiversity has been assessed on anationwide scale using integrated indicators based on
spatial structural characteristics, and it has great academic significance.
We also developed a method to assess change overtime in regulating services. By improving on preexistingmodels, which have assessed situations only as a snapshot, and by using land use data for multiple time periods
it is possible to determine trends in temporal and spatialchanges in regulating services. This method can also be
used for scenario analyses.
Based on these results, we constructed a frame for the
integrated analysis of biodiversity and ecosystem services. The use of RuLIS agricultural ecosystem categories, which have shared numerical data and a spatial
hierarchy, made it possible to perform multi-scale,quantitative assessments of the linkage between biodiversity and ecosystem services, and of regional
characteristics. Compared with other versatile assessment tools, the advantage of this assessment frame is thatit includes the environmental stratification procedure
which is needed for the assessment of satoyama-likelandscapes, of which there are various types dependingon natural and socio-economic conditions. Further, theassessment frame provided in this study could be used as
an effective tool for supporting scientific decision making when selecting the best land use options from among
multiple land use scenarios, and it therefore it could havegreat significance in practical application.

211

Acknowledgments
This study was supported by Environment Research& Technology Development Fund of the Ministry of theEnvironment of Japan entitled “Ecosystem Services
Assessment of Satoyama, Satochi, and Satoumi to Identify a New Commons for a Nature-Harmonious Society(E-0902),” and by the Global Center of Excellence Program of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science,
under the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Scienceand Technology of Japan, entitled “Center of Excellence
for Asian Conservation Ecology as a Basis of HumanNature Mutualism.” We would like to thank two
anonymous reviewers for critical comments.
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Toshiya OKURO
Toshiya OKURO is a Professor at the Graduate
School of Agricultural and Life Sciences, theUniversity of Tokyo. He has a PhD in Agriculture.
He has been carrying out landscape ecologicalstudies on desertification control and restorationof ecosystem services in the drylands of Northeast
Asia, and sustainable land management for biodiversity conservation in
paddy-centered agro-ecosystems. He has also been involved in the Japan
Satoyama Satoumi Assessment (JSSA) as a Coordinating Lead Author forthe national assessment.

Yuanmei JIAO
Yuanmei JIAO is an Associate Professor at the
School of Tourism and Geography Sciences,
Yunnan Normal University. She has a PhD in
Physical Geography/Landscape Ecology. She has
been conducting comprehensive research on
conservation and management of the Hani terrace,
China, ranging from spatio-temporal patterns of landscape and multifunctionality to cultural aspects such as indigenous ecological knowledge.
Since 2009 She has been involved in a research project entitled“Ecosystem Services Assessment of Satoyama, Satochi, and Satoumi to
Identify a New Commons for a Nature-Harmonious Society (E-0902),”
supported by the Environment Research & Technology Development Fundof the Ministry of the Environment of Japan, as a visiting researcher at the
University of Tokyo.

Shori YAMAMOTO
Shori YAMAMOTO heads the Research Planning
Office of the National Institute for AgroEnvironmental Sciences. He is also a Guest
Associate Professor at the Graduate School of
Agricultural and Life Sciences, the University ofTokyo. He has a PhD in Agriculture. He has been
involved in landscape ecological studies on conservation of satoyama
landscapes, with special reference to the effects of human activities andchanges in these activities on biodiversity. He has also been engaged in themonitoring and assessment of biodiversity in agro-ecosystems of Monsoon
Asia as a member of the Strategic Research and Development Project
entitled, “Integrative Observations and Assessments of Asian Biodiversity(S-9),” supported by the Environment Research & Technology Development Fund of the Ministry of the Environment of Japan.

(Received 13 May 2012, Accepted 1 August 2012)