Full Report

International Workshop on Sustainable Management of
Socio-Ecological Production Landscapes in Noto

Photo: Go Tabinuki

Organizers:
United Nations University Institute for the Advanced Study of Sustainability (UNU-IAS), and
UNU-IAS Operating Unit Ishikawa/Kanazawa (OUIK)Co-organizers:
School of Regional Development Studies, Center for Regional Collaboration, Kanazawa University;
Ishikawa Prefectural University; andGraduate School of Global Environmental Studies, Kyoto University

Cooperation:
Ishikawa PrefectureDate: 10 – 12 Feburary 2014
Venue: Large Meeting Room, Kanazawa Bunka Hall, Kanazawa City, Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan

Co-chairs:
Osamu Saito, Shizuka Hashimoto, and Ryo Kohsaka
Advisors:
Koji Nakamura and Seiji Yanai
Drafting Team:
Archana Jayaraman, Chiho Kamiyama, Chen Siew Fong, Harumi Akiba, Henrik Moller,
Maximillian Spiegelberg, Osamu Saito, Pia Kieninger, Shiwei Gou, Shogo Nakamura,
Wataru Suzuki, Yuki Fukuda, and Yohsuke Amano
Photo:
GoTabinuki (cover) and Kozue Suto (inside)
Edit:
Osamu Saito and Yohsuke AmanoACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This workshop was organized by the United Nations University Institute for the Advanced Study of
Sustainability (UNU-IAS), and UNU-IAS Operating Unit Ishikawa/Kanazawa (OUIK), and coorganized by the School of Regional Development Studies, Center for Regional Collaboration,
Kanazawa University; Ishikawa Prefectural University; and the Graduate School of Global
Environmental Studies, Kyoto University, in cooperation with Ishikawa Prefecture. It wasundertaken as a part of the research project “Tradeoff Analysis and Local Governance Model ofSatoyama Ecosystem Services” (ES-Tradeoff, FY2013-FY2015, 1-1303), supported by the Ministryof the Environment, Japan through its Environment Research and Technology Development Fund.

iTABLE OF CONTENTSACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................................... i
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ............................................................................................................... 1
1. INTRODUCTION.......................................................................................................................... 6
2. OBJECTIVES AND KEY QUESTIONS..................................................................................... 8
3. WORKSHOP PROGRAM ......................................................................................................... 10
4. PRESENTATION ABSTRACTS .............................................................................................. 12
5. SUMMARY OF PANEL DISCUSSION ON 11 FEBRUARY. ............................................... 32
6. DISCUSSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS REGARDING FIVE KEY QUESTIONS ... 34
7. CONCLUSIONS .......................................................................................................................... 43
REFERENCES ................................................................................................................................. 46
APPENDICES .................................................................................................................................. 48
Participants list ............................................................................................................................................ 48
Presentations ............................................................................................................................................... 50

ii

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
1. Background
The Noto Peninsula in Ishikawa Prefecture is famous for its rich “satoyama” socio-ecological production
landscapes (SEPLS) and management traditions. Local governments have been very active in maintaining
and revitalizing these landscapes. Thanks to their efforts, the Noto Peninsula has been designated as one of
the Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS)1 by the Food and Agriculture Organization(FAO) of the United Nations.
In order to promote SEPLS management and spread awareness that protecting biodiversity entails theprotection of both wild and human-influenced natural environments, the United Nations University (UNU)
has established the Satoyama Initiative in collaboration with the Ministry of the Environment, Japan (MOEJ).
The Satoyama Initiative serves as an effort at creating thoughtful action towards the conservation and use ofhuman-influenced natural environments.
UNU also implemented the Japan Satoyama Satoumi Assessment (JSSA)2 from 2006 to 2010. As the second
phase of JSSA, UNU’s Operating Unit Ishikawa/Kanazawa (OUIK) is planning to initiate a new regionalscale assessment of socio-ecological production landscapes and seascapes (SEPLS, or satoyama and satoumi
in Japanese) in Ishikawa Prefecture. This assessment will be developed on the basis of the Intergovernmental
Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) conceptual framework. Additionally, UNU has
started a new project on SEPLS ecosystem service tradeoff analysis in the Noto Peninsula3, in collaboration
with Kyoto University and Kanazawa University.

2. Objectives and Key Questions
In promotion of these recent research projects, this workshop was organized to share information and ideas
on data, methodologies, and ongoing research activities. Workshop participants also explored future
research directions for developing new co-management and co-governance models, which may be applicablein other areas such as Europe and Oceania.
This workshop explored the following five key questions:(1) What are the key challenges and opportunities in management of socio-ecological production
landscapes?
(2) How can the different stakeholders overcome challenges and promote collaboration in developing new
co-management and co-governance models in harmony with nature?
(3) What approaches, methods, and techniques can be used to integrate traditional ecological knowledge
and modern science to promote innovation and transformation?
(4) How can the IPBES Conceptual Framework be transferred/tuned to local application?
(5) What are new research areas or frontiers that should be explored in the next five years (joint research
proposals as outcomes of this workshop)?

1

GIAHS: http://www.fao.org/giahs/giahs-sites/south-east-asia/notos-satoyama-and-satoumi-japan/en/
JSSA: https://www.ias.unu.edu/sub_page.aspx?catID=1043&ddlID=10423
http://isp.unu.edu/research/local-governance-ecosystem/index.html
21

3. Key Messages
1) What are the key challenges and opportunities in management of socio-ecologicalproduction landscapes?
Key challenges emphasized during the workshop included:(1) demographic change represented by depopulation, aging, and emigration from rural to urban areas;(2) expansion of abandoned land;(3) human-animal conflict;(4) substitution of mono-cropping systems where previously there was a diverse array of food and fibre
production;(5) disconnection of urban and rural people and policies;(6) weak policy and science interface;(7) misunderstanding of different cultures; and(8) conventional values systems (inertia, business-as-usual-mindset).
At the same time, we identifed opportunities to improve and transform management of socio-ecologicalproduction landscapes, including:(a) ecosystem based approach to enhance resilience;(b) creations of an environmental friendly, green infrastructure;(c) growing organic and natural products from abandoned farmland;(d) increasing production of renewable energy;(e) linking small farmer into their own co-operative to improve market advantages;(f) direct marketing from farmers to consumers;(g) accrediting SEPLS products to international certification schemes;(h) crowdfunding to invest more small farmers’ new business; and(i) developing new tourism and new business models.

2) How can the different stakeholders overcome challenges and promote collaboration indeveloping new co-management and co-governance models in harmony with nature?
We propose the following six approaches to overcome the challenges and promote collaboration indeveloping new co-management models.
(1) Stakeholder Engagement:- Collaboration depends on getting all the stakeholders involved throughout the process. Therefore, whoshould be stakeholders? Everybody is a stakeholder. Sharing a feeling of crisis (current situation) is key.
- Team effort will depend on understanding the values and priorities of diverse stakeholders; dialoguingwith various stakeholders is needed to discuss what benefits they get from SEPLS.
(2) Vision, Leadership and Local Networks:- Collaboration may require participants to rearrange their value system and mindset. Sharing a common
understanding/vision brings cohesive effort, though we don’t need to agree entirely for constructive
joint action (debate and creative tension suggest a variety of solutions).
- Leadership and successors are important parts of social capital to enable adaptation and transformationof SEPLS. Social networks may have to be strengthened or extended before local knowledge and energy
can be harnessed for a common cause (utilizing local networks).
(3) Reorganizing of Value Systems:
2

-

SEPLS are not just places for food production or tourism resources. They are systems that hold thevalue of beliefs and ethics of people and societies. We can make use of international recognition
schemes like GIAHS as an opportunity for the community to reassess the value of their culture andnatural capital. Cultural identity and connection to place are key ingredients of social capital that
underpin the future care and restoration of SEPLS.

(4) New Producer-Consumer Model:- Long supply chains for most provisioning services make consumers ‘blind’ to who has produced thefood or fibre they use and what care has been taken to produce it in a way that does or does not support
SEPLS. A method is needed to indirectly reconnect consumers and producers.
- Corporative Social Responsibility (CSR): There may be a need to help small business, subsidize
production, and sponsor entrepreneurship.
- Direct marketing, food co-ops, SEPLS-branding for local products, etc.
(5) Good Governance and New Commons Approach:- Intra- and inter-governmental cooperation provides cross-scale linkage to manage threats and capture
opportunities that can restrore and protect SEPLS. Local policymakers have a particularly important andactive role. Long-term commitment should be ensured because conservation, adaptation, and learning
can take a long time. Also, threats and drivers are likely to change in the coming decades –sustainability is more about a journey than a single destination. Good governance therefore emerges as afundamental requirement if SEPLS are to still be present in 100 years.
- Multiple partners have roles. These could include “U-, J-, and I-turners”4, local residents, private sector
members (shifting from CSR to Creating Shared Value, or CSV), urban citizens, volunteers, etc.
(6) Information, Data Management, and Knowledge Sharing:- Trans-disciplinary research should be enhanced. Standardized data gathering, collaborative mapping andmeasuring where possible, and using qualitative information where more appropriate can all build
knowledge of what to do, where, and when, in order to sustain SEPLS. Collective strength comes fromscientists becoming involved with NPOs’ and NGOs’ activities and a network of “citizen scientists”
from the local community; local eyes see and care most, but their information has more value if it isstructured, collected, and analyzed to some degree.

3) What approaches, methods, and techniques can be used to integrate traditional ecologicalknowledge and modern science to promote innovation and transformation?
The main discussion considered the ways to harness the transdisciplinary power of integrating Traditionaland Local Knowledge (TLK) with science to promote innovation and the transformation of the Noto
Peninsula’s SEPLS. Dedication of sufficient time and investment into forming a network and respectful
relationship between local TLK experts, policymakers, politicians, and scientists will underpin thisintegration and make to the emerging new synthesis of knowledge more complete and reliable.
Co-discovery from knowledge-sharing is likely to identify more choices for managing SEPLS while
simultaneously building the trust and social capital necessary to apply collaborative interventions to solve
problems and take avantage of opportunities for people, profit, and the planet.
4

In Japan, people from rural areas who moved to big cities to attend school or find work and then later return to theirhometowns are called “U-turners”; those from rural areas who do not return to their hometowns but decide to live
permanently in cities on the way are dubbed “J-turners“; and big-city dwellers who relocate to new rural areas to live
and work are called “I-turners” (Yahata, 1997).

3

Collaborative planning, many face-to-face meetings, and communication of results in both popular andformal scholarly ways are needed. Cultural mapping, rapid appraisal methods to score Cultural Health, andgathering of oral histories are some of a growing set of formal research techniques for TLK and science
partnership.
Cultural Keystone Species can be identified for priority research and intervention. Qualitative andquantitative information can be cross-referenced by applying Qualitative Data Analysis, Discourse Analysis,
Choice Modelling, and calibration of TLK indicators to ecological survey results. Gathering large volumes of
locally-grounded credible data from TLK experts and citizen scientists can give added power, replication,and representativeness for subsequent scientific analysis.
Ultimately, TLK and science can be cross-referenced to expose what is happening, and science can add aseries of tools for identifying causes of observed trends and patterns. TLK and science working together canbuild consensus on joint action for transformation and can then proceed to monitor the success of collective
intervention in retaining and enhancing SEPLS on the Noto Peninsula.

4) How can the IPBES Conceptual Framework be transferred/tuned to local application?
In the process of applying the IPBES Conceptual Framework (CF) to local ecosystem assessment, we need
the involvement of (local) practitioners/stakeholders to fully take into account the linkage between “qualityof life” and “nature”. More fundamentally, the CF could better support SEPLS if it recognized the feedback
from having a healthy society and economy to being better able to manage and support biodiversity andecosystem services. Maintaining all these services helps humans and their communities, nations, and cultures
maintain a presence in the landscape. Such a presence is essential to monitor, plan, intervene, invest, andcollaborate to maintain biodiversity and the SEPLS itself. We therefore introduced a new feedback loop for
the CF to emphasise the huge amount of reciprocity involved. This led workshop participants to call for morepositive language in the CF and for it to recognise the benefits that people confer on the land and biodiversity.
The importance of data collection and sharing for each of the CF’s components (building blocks) was also
highlighted as having common ground with the assessment. The IPBES CF should recognize positive aspectsof anthropogenic drivers and environmental impacts as well as synergistic relationship between“anthropogenic assets” and “nature‘s benefits to people”. Our discussion also pointed out that both
ecosystem services and anthropogenic assets should consider various types of capital (stocks) as sources ofbenefits and services to human beings. One of the key challenges lies in how to overcome the gap between
policy- and scientific/temporal/spatial scales.

5) What are new research areas or frontiers that should be explored in the next five years(joint research proposals as outcomes of this workshop)?
New research areas or frontiers in assessment and knowledge generation to be explored in the next five years
include investigations of;(1) abandonment of forest and farmland;(2) ecosystem services synergy and trade-offs;(3) long supply chains of ecosystem services and reorganization of value chains;(4) appropriate scales and levels for co-management;(5) maintaining pollination and decomposition chains in ecosystems;(6) land degradation;(7) food security;(8) nutrient cycles;4(9) human wealth and well-being through filling in the missing arrow between nature and human well-being
in the IPBES CF;(10) measuring human well-being and its relation to ecosystem services;(11) watershed management;(12) wildlife damage and human-wildlife conflicts;(13) integration and compilation of information by GIS;
(14) creating new indicators (e.g. landscape evaluation);(15) valuation of ecosystem services at different scales;(16) inclusive knowledge generation, bridging traditional local knowledge and scientific knowledge;(17) landscape governance strategies between different countries/cultures; and(18) analyisis of best-practice examples of rural development and its transferability to other places in rural
areas.
Needs for policy support and capacity development were also identified, including enhancing attractivenessand revitalization of isolated or less-preferred places. There is a need to learn from successes and bestpractices (through international comparative studies)

Next steps:
Based on the discussion at the workshop, six potential actions or programs were identified that should beconsidered as next steps:(1) Organize a dialogue workshop with local stakeholders in Noto to facilitate the interface of science, policy,
and society, and encourage further partnership and co-management.
(2) Organize a workshop to develop a common data set and maps to integrate various research projects in
Noto and Ishikawa, and in the Hokuriku region.
(3) Develop an international joint workshop proposals to the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST),Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS), or other potential funding sources.
(4) Conduct comparative case studies between UNU, Kanazawa University, and BOKU.
(5) Create a student exchange program/internship between UNU, Kanazawa University, and BOKU, relating
to the common case study research.
(6) Exchange knowledge between locals/stakeholders and scientists in New Zealand, Austria, and Japan. E.g.,“study groups” from the three countries are visiting each other in order to see best-practice examples inother countries.

51. INTRODUCTION
The Noto Peninsula in Ishikawa Prefecture is famous for its rich “satoyama” socio-ecological production
landscapes (SEPLS) and management traditions. Local governments have been very active in maintaining
and revitalizing these landscapes. Thanks to their efforts, the Noto Peninsula has been designated as one of
the Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS)5 by the Food and Agriculture Organization(FAO) of the United Nations.
In order to promote SEPLS management and spread awareness that protecting biodiversity entails theprotection of both wild and human-influenced natural environments, the United Nations University (UNU)
has established the Satoyama Initiative in collaboration with the Ministry of the Environment, Japan (MOEJ).
The Satoyama Initiative serves as an effort at creating thoughtful action towards the conservation and use ofhuman-influenced natural environments.
UNU also implemented the Japan Satoyama Satoumi Assessment (JSSA)6 from 2006 to 2010. As the second
phase of JSSA, UNU’s Operating Unit Ishikawa/Kanazawa (OUIK) is planning to initiate a new regionalscale assessment of socio-ecological production landscapes and seascapes (SEPLS, or “satoyama” and“satoumi” in Japanese) in Ishikawa Prefecture. This assessment will be developed on the basis of theIntergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) Conceptual Framework.
Additionally, UNU has started a new project on SEPLS ecosystem service tradeoff analysis in the Noto
Peninsula7, in collaboration with Kyoto University and Kanazawa University.
BOX 1.
Research Framework for Trade-off Analysis and Local Governance Modelling of Satoyama Ecosystem
Services
In April 2013, Kanazawa University, Kyoto University, and the United Nations University Institute of
Sustainability and Peace (now merged into the United Nations University Institute for the Advanced Study of
Sustainability: UNU-IAS) launched a new collaborative research project on the Noto Peninsula in Japan toanalyze the local governance of ecosystem services, focusing on Japanese satoyama landscape models whichemphasize interdependence between humans and nature. An innovative research framework for trade-off
analysis and local governance modelling was proposed (Fig. 1), addressing some of the common gaps inbiodiversity and ecosystem service assessments identified in the above IPBES review. With this newframework, the Noto research attempts to connect basic information on ecosystem services to capacity
building for the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity. Quantitative multi- and cross-scale analysesof trade-offs and synergies among ecosystem services were also incorporated. The Noto study also addresses
the need to strengthen functioning and resilience in socio-ecological production landscapes by integrating
traditional and scientific knowledge.
The research draws on the “new commons” approach expounded in the Japan Satoyama Satoumi
Assessment. This approach seeks new socio-ecological systems to sustain functions and provide services
best suited to regional needs through co-management by local people, municipal governments, the private
sector, and non-governmental and civil society organizations. This necessitates the development of newsocial contracts including all actors to foster a public consciousness that embraces decentralized, regional,
and local initiatives.
This project aims to:5

GIAHS: http://www.fao.org/giahs/giahs-sites/south-east-asia/notos-satoyama-and-satoumi-japan/en/
JSSA: https://www.ias.unu.edu/sub_page.aspx?catID=1043&ddlID=10427
http://isp.unu.edu/research/local-governance-ecosystem/index.html
66

i. Develop an ecosystem services inventory for the Noto Peninsula. This will take into account thestock and flow of each identified ecosystem service, the interrelations of ecosystem services, andthe spatial distribution of their suppliers and beneficiaries (subtheme 1)
ii. Assess synergies and trade-offs in ecosystem service management. This will include trade-offs andsynergies between different ecosystem services, as well as across different spatial and temporalscales (subtheme 2).
iii. Propose new methods of local governance and knowledge generation towards a sustainable society.
The role of local and traditional knowledge will be examined, together with possibilities for
integrating it into modern and scientific knowledge (subtheme 3). Cost-benefit and knowledge gaps
in ecosystem services will be identified and new approaches and methods to fix the gaps will be
proposed
As well as improving local governance of SEPLS in the Noto Peninsula, the project is expected to contributetowards a localized and integrated assessment model for IPBES, the Convention on Biological Diversity(CBD), and the Satoyama Initiative.

Satoyama landscapefarmlandTarget: Noto Peninsula

ForestObjective: Propose a new
Traditional Use

Modern Use(e.g. use of various minor forest products)(e.g. forest certification system and tourism)

local governance model
towards conservation andsustainable use of biodiversity【Subtheme 1】【Subtheme 3】

Development of an integrated ES* inventory
Provisioning
services【Subtheme 2】(Agricultural production)

Regulating
services(Climate and water
regulation)

Cultural services(Scenery, knowledge,
value)

Other assets
and services(e.g. substitution by
resources importand infrastructure)

ES* synergies (co-benefits) and trade-off analysis
e.g. Provisioning services
and regulating services

Mosaic structure of landscapeInterlinkage across spatial scales

Investigate challenges andopportunities for local
governance and knowledge
generation
Allocation
throughlegislation
Customary
Allocation
allocation
throughwithinmarketcommunities

Interlinkage between ES
e.g. Upstream and downstream

ES cost -benefit sharing and knowledge gap(Spatial scales/ Institution/ Awareness/ Tradition, Culture)

Cost-benefit andknowledge gap, changes
in local and traditional
knowledge*ES: Ecosystem services

Fig. 1 The research framework for tradeoff analysis and local governance model of satoyama
ecosystem services

7

2. OBJECTIVES AND KEY QUESTIONSIn promotion of these recent research projects, UNU held an international workshop in Ishikawa Prefecture
in February 2014 in order to share information and ideas on data, methodologies, and ongoing research
activities, and to explore future research directions for developing new co-management and co-governancemodels, which may be applicable in other areas such as Europe and Oceania.
Key questions explored in this workshop include:(1) What are the key challenges and opportunities in management of socio-ecological production
landscapes?
(2) How can the different stakeholders overcome challenges and promote collaboration in developing new
co-management and co-governance models in harmony with nature?
(3) What approaches, methods and techniques can be used to integrate traditional ecological knowledge
and modern science to promote innovation and transformation?
(4) How can the IPBES Conceptual Framework (Fig. 2) be transferred/tuned to local application?
(5) What are new research areas or frontiers that should be explored in the next five years (joint research
proposals as outcomes of this workshop)?
The workshop was followed by a seminar, open to the public, to disseminate the outcomes of the workshop
to the community and seek feedback from various stakeholders.

BOX 2.
IPBES Conceptual Framework
According to the latest IPBES document (IPBES/2/17), the Platform’s Conceptual Framework includes six
interlinked elements constituting a socio-ecological system that operates at various scales in time and space:nature; nature’s benefits to people; anthropogenic assets; institutions and governance systems and otherindirect drivers of change; direct drivers of change; and good quality of life. The framework is graphically
depicted in Fig. 2.
Fig. 2 demonstrates the main elements and relationships for the conservation and sustainable use of
biodiversity and ecosystem services, human well being, and sustainable development. Similar
conceptualizations in other knowledge systems include “living in harmony with nature” and “Mother
Earth”, among others. In the main panel, delimited in grey, “nature”, “nature’s benefits to people” and“good quality of life” (indicated as black headlines) are inclusive of all these world views; text in green
denotes the concepts of science; and text in blue denotes those of other knowledge systems. Solid arrows in
the main panel denote influence between elements; the dotted arrows denote links that are acknowledged asimportant, but are not the main focus of the Platform. The thick coloured arrows below and to the right ofthe central panel indicate different scales of time and space, respectively.
“Nature” in the context of the Platform refers to the natural world with an emphasis on biodiversity.
Within the context of science, it includes categories such as biodiversity, ecosystems, ecosystem
functioning, evolution, the biosphere, humankind’s shared evolutionary heritage, and biocultural diversity.
Within the context of other knowledge systems, it includes categories such as “Mother Earth” and “systemsof life”. Nature contributes to societies through the provision of benefits to people (instrumental andrelational values, see below) and has its own intrinsic values, that is, the value inherent to nature,
independent of human experience and evaluation and thus beyond the scope of anthropocentric valuation
approaches.
“Anthropogenic assets” refers to built-up infrastructure, health facilities, knowledge (including indigenous
8

and local knowledge systems and technical or scientific knowledge, as well as formal and non-formal
education), technology (both physical objects and procedures), and financial assets, among others.
Anthropogenic assets have been highlighted to emphasize that a good life is achieved by co-production of
benefits between nature and societies.
“Nature’s benefits to people” refers to all the benefits that humanity obtains from nature. Ecosystem goods
and services, considered separately or in bundles, are included in this category. Within other knowledge
systems, “nature’s gifts” and similar concepts refer to the benefits of nature from which people derive agood quality of life. Aspects of nature that can be negative to people, such as pests, pathogens or predators,
are also included in this broad category. All nature’s benefits have anthropocentric value, including
instrumental values – the direct and indirect contributions of ecosystem services to a good quality of life,
which can be conceived in terms of preference satisfaction, and relational values, which contribute todesirable relationships, such as those among people and between people and nature, as in the notion of“living in harmony with nature”.
Anthropocentric values can be expressed in diverse ways. They can be material or non-material, can beexperienced in a non-consumptive way, or consumed; and they can be expressed from spiritual inspiration
to market value. They also include existential value (the satisfaction obtained from knowing that nature
continues to be there) and future-oriented values. The latter include bequest value – in other words, thepreservation of nature for future generations – or the option values of biodiversity as a reservoir of yet-to-be
discovered uses from known and still unknown species and biological processes, or as a constant source,
through evolutionary processes, of novel biological solutions to the challenges of a changing environment.

Fig. 2 IPBES Analytical Conceptual Framework(Source) United Nations Environment Programme. (2013). Report of the second session of the Plenary of theIntergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, IPBES/2/17.
93. WORKSHOP PROGRAM
Date
Mon, 10 Feb

Time
9:00-10:00

Event
Expert Workshop
Opening Session
Chair:- Opening remarks (UNU, Kanazawa Univ.)- Self-introduction of the participants- Background and objectives of the workshop (Suzuki &Saito)

10:00-11:30

Overview of satoyama and satoumi regional
assessments and studies(5 experts X 15mins)- Wataru Suzuki (UNU-IAS) & Chen Siew Fong (Regional
Env Planning)
Overview of JSSA Hokuetsu Cluster and OUIK research project- Osamu Saito (UNU-IAS)
Overview and Progress of ES-Tradeoff research project- Shizuka Hashimoto (Kyoto University)
Identifying the characteristics of Noto, Ishikawa from its land
use and ecosystem services- Ryo Kohsaka (Kanazawa University)
Traditional Knowledge, Biodiversity and Governance: Linking
global and local- Shiwei Gou (Kyoto University)
Assessing the baseline condition of Nakahechi, Kumano
Pilgrimage Route and explore its conservation and restoration
under the context of cultural landscape

11:30-11:45
11:45-13:00

BreakInternational context: (3 experts X 15mins)- Prof. Henrik Moller
Choice of optimal indicators for Co-management of Production
Landscapes: Joining Science, Traditional and Local Knowledge,
Policy Expertise and Consumers for Sustainability- Dr. Pia Kieninger
Kulturlandschaft and Satoyama
Socio-ecological Production Landscapes: Parallels andDifferences between Austria and Japan- Rodger Mpdane
Overview of IPBES.

13:00-14:00
14:00-18:00- Q&A (30min)
Lunch
Breakout Discussion Session
1) What are the key challenges and opportunities inmanagement of socio-ecological production
landscapes?
2) How can diffirent stakeholders overcome challenges
and promote collaboration in developing new comanagement and co-governance models in harmony
with nature?
3) What approaches, methods and techniques can be used
to integrate traditional ecological knowledge andmodern science to promote innovation andtransformation?
4) How can the IPBES Conceptual Framework betransferred/tuned to local application?
5) What are new research areas or frontiers that should be
explored in the next five years (joint research proposals
10Remarks
Closed to the
public(Language:
English only)as outcomes of this workshop)?

Tue, 11 Feb

18:30
9:00-12:00

DinnerExpert Workshop
Wrap-up session: Chair-

Key messages, outline and timeline of the workshop’s
outcome document
Closing remarks (co-chairs)

Closed to the
public・Photo session

12:00-13:00
13:00-16:30

Lunch
Seminar- MC: Mr. Tsunao Watanabe- Opening Remarks: Kazuhiko Takemoto- Keynote Speakers
 Prof. Henrik Moller (30min)
Indicators for Co-management of Production Landscapes:
Joining Science, Traditional and Local Knowledge, Policy
Expertise and Consumers for Sustainability



Dr. Pia Kieninger(30min)Kulturlandschaft and Satoyama
Socio-ecological Production Landscapes: Parallels andDifferences between Austria and Japan- Case Studies
 Mr. Kiichiro Tada

Open to the
public.
(Language:
Simultaneousinterpretation,
Japanese andEnglish)(30 min)Shunran-no-Sato: Rural Regeneration

Prof. Seiji Yanai(30min)The Role of Land Crabs in Linking Satoyama and Satoumi- Panel DiscussionWed, 12 Feb

9:30-(60min)Discussants: Moller, Kieninger, Hashimoto, & Kohsaka
Chair: Saito

AM: Report Writing

11

OUIK

4. PRESENTATION ABSTRACTSOUIK’s Efforts toward Satoyama andSatoumi Assessment in Noto
Wataru Suzuki(Satoyama Initiative Coordinator, UNU-IAS)

1. Background of the JSSA
Since 2001, the international community has been carrying out efforts toward assessment of biodiversity andecosystem services, such as the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA), Sub-Global Assessment (SGA)
Network, IPBES, and Inclusive Wealth Index. Meanwhile, nationally, OUIK initiated the Japan Satoyama
Satoumi Assessment (JSSA) in 2007.
The JSSA is a study of the interaction between humans and terrestrial-aquatic ecosystems (satoyama), andmarine-coastal ecosystems (satoumi) in Japan. It follows and applies the framework of SGAs developed by
the MA, with the main goal of providing scientifically credible and policy-relevant information on thesignificance of ecosystem services provided by satoyama and satoumi landscapes and their contributions toeconomic and human development for the use of policymakers. There are three main reasons the JSSA
adopted the MA’s ecosystem-services framework:1) the centrality of human well-being in considerations of ecosystem services;2) recognition of the interdependency, synergy, and trade-offs between ecosystem services and humanwell-being; and3) acknowledgement of different temporal and spatial scales that impact this interdependency.
2. Findings and contributions of the JSSAThe JSSA systematically collected valuable scientific data including changes that have occurred in satoyama
and satoumi in five major clusters throughout Japan in order to encompass different geographical, climatic,
ecological, social, economic, and political characteristics over the 50 years since the end of World War II.
The JSSA defined satoyama landscapes as “Socio-Ecological Production Landscapes” (SEPLs), leading to
the recognition of the Satoyama Initiative and the establishment of the International Partnership of theSatoyama Initiative (IPSI) at COP10.
Efforts in the agriculture and food production sectors led to the establishment of GIAHS, and as such it isconsidered a complementary programme to the Satoyama Initiative.
3. Future challenges identified toward IPBES
In considering contributions to IPBES’ regional and sub-regional assessments, it is essential to provide
policy-relevant information with scientific credibility related to the significance of biodiversity andecosystem services and the contributions of economic and human development. In Noto and the Hokuriku
region, however, there is only a limited amount of available common data and no common platform forsharing such data. For the next step in contributing to the IPBES assessment, it will be important to establish
a common platform for sharing scientific data on the target region and also to conduct sub-national
12

assessment to help multiscale assessment under IPBES. The second phase of the JSSA is expected to include
these.

13

Spatial Data Collection and Perspectives on
the Multi-scale Assessment of the Noto
Peninsula’s Ecosystem Services
Chen Siew Fong, Tadashi Masuzawa, Hajime Ise(Environmental Consultant, Regional
Environmental Planning Inc.)

Addressing ecosystem services and their interaction across spatial scales is an important component of the
IPBES Conceptual Framework, but depending on administrative boundaries to define its scale and extent
may be inadequate. We recommend a multiscale assessment unit based on watersheds as planning units insatoyama and satoumi management, this being an enclosed system that encompasses ecological processes
from the mountains (upstream) down to the sea (downstream).
Focusing on Noto, we divided our data collection into three scales: regional (Fukui, Ishikawa, Toyama andNiigata prefectures), large watershed (Ishikawa prefecture), and three cities in Noto namely Suzu City,
Nanao City and Hakui City. We then collected data based on the Japan Satoyama Satoumi Assessment’s
ecosystem-services indicators for the Hokushinetsu cluster, and assigned them to their respective spatial
scale and appropriate spatial resolution.
The important outcomes of our study can be divided into three categories: watershed divide andrecommendations for strategizing ecosystem-services evaluation; biodiversity and environmental issues thattranscend prefectural boundaries and are crucial for re-thinking co-management; and the importance ofdigitizing and making available more spatial data as a basis for scientific research. At the regional scale, themain watershed lines divide Hokushinetsu into satoyama and satoumi regions with watersheds that flow into
the Sea of Japan, and regions with watersheds flowing into Toyama Bay, which is especially important inevaluating provisioning services and environmental risk management of riverine and coastal ecosystems. The
Noto Peninsula depends on both systems, and this reflects the importance of synchronizing environmental
management strategies and co-management across prefectural lines to preserve the provisioning andbiodiversity services of the Noto Peninsula. Increasing wildlife-human conflict is also a crucial issue thatdemands immediate cooperation across prefectural lines.
Lastly, there is a need for quality spatial data and digitization of existing data in GIS for quick visualization
and analysis, as a basis for scientific research. Good maps are important persuasion tools for policymakers
and local residents. Up-to-date data for evaluating ecosystem services at local scale is especially lacking,particularly agricultural production, anthropogenic drivers and natural drivers. Data availability takes time;
therefore sharing of scientific research results (published data), and transdiciplinary cooperation among
researchers in Noto and Hokushinetsu will be key in strengthening the scientific basis for evaluating Noto’s
ecosystem services.

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15

Trade-offs and Local Synergies in Satoyama
Ecosystem Services
Osamu Saito(Academic Programme Officier, UNU-IAS)

The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES),
established in 2012, is an independent intergovernmental body which aims to provide scientific support forpolicy-making in the area of biodiversity and ecosystem services (BES). It is expected that IPBES will focus
on regional and sub-regional scale scientific activities that contribute to policy-making. In particular, theAsia-Pacific region is expected to play an important role as it houses mega-biodiversity. Our study discusses
how identified needs for advanced biodiversity and ecosystem-service governance may be met through a
new assessment framework implemented on the Noto Peninsula of Japan by the United Nations University,
Kanazawa University, and Kyoto University. The Noto project highlights the importance of local context andknowledge in ecosystem-service management, focusing on new adaptations of Japanese ‘satoyama’landscapes models emphasizing interdependence between humans and nature. Such models seek toscientifically answer how to share and improve the diverse benefits nature provides, and identify new typesof integrated knowledge and social initiatives in order to pass on interdependent satoyama-type landscapes tofuture generations.
Firstly, we reviewed the state of knowledge in the Asia-Pacific region by using the online IPBES Catalogueof Assessments on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services to identify gaps and needs for future assessments
contributing to IPBES key functions. Through our review, we found that: (1) urban, dryland ecosystems, andcultural ecosystem services are least assessed; (2) direct engagement of cross-scale public, private, and civilsociety stakeholders is low; and (3) combinations of citizen science and local and indigenous science areunderrepresented and cross-stakeholder priorities in trade-off analysis are less considered.
Secondly, to overcome key challenges addressed in the review, we propose an innovative researchframework integrating local stakeholder and scientific knowledge generation for understanding of thesynergetic relationships between underrepresented ecosystem services, such as co-beneficial cultural andprovisioning services. As preliminary results, we found that people share diverse agricultural products grownin their own farmlands by bartering and sharing within and beyond their communities. The amount of suchproducts with no market transaction was significantly higher in the Noto Peninsula than other regions. Thesefindings also help identify how social drivers of land-management change can have unexpected feedbacks to
BES, which in turn eventually undermines the positive impact that sharing of various provisioning services
has in maintaining knowledge and cohesion in aging communities.

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17

Identifying Characteristics of Noto,
Ishikawa from its Land Use and Ecosystem
Services
Shizuka Hashimoto1 & Shogo Nakamura2(Associate Professor1 & Research Fellow2, Kyoto
University)

The Noto Peninsula has been designated as one of the Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems(GIAHS) by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), recognized for its social-ecological production
landscapes (SEPLS) consisting of a mosaic of villages, farmlands, secondary forests, artificial forests, andirrigation ponds. The landscape of Noto has been formed and maintained through long-term human influenceon nature. However, its sustainability is currently in trouble in large part due to rapid depopulation and aging,which is gradually breaking down the balance of SEPLS, causing, for instance, the abandonment of farmland
and forests and increased human-wildlife conflicts. In order to achieve the sustainable management of Noto’s
SEPLS in a strategic manner, developing common ground regarding the current situation in the Noto
peninsula is of crucial importance. To this end, we have been carrying out a macroscopic assessment ofNoto’s ecosystem services and landscape quality.
Firstly, we have developed an ecosystem services inventory of Noto, based on a literature review including
the GIAHS application documents by the Noto Regional GIAHS Executive Committee and the Hokushinetsu
cluster report developed by the Japans Satoyama-Satoumi Assessment. Our ecosystem services inventory
represents the wide variety of ecosystem services available in Noto for each of the three ecosystem service
categories, namely provisioning, regulating and cultural services.
Secondly, one of the challenges we faced in evaluating provisioning services is that not all services areavailable as statistics. For instance, although there are over 700 types of agricultural and forest products
available in Noto, the agricultural statistics cover only a small portion of the products with large production
volume, and are therefore insufficient to capture the diversity of cultivars which fall into the same statisticalcategory, such as rice.
Another challenge is the assessment of cultural services as “non-material or intangible benefits people obtainfrom ecosystems”. To handle this issue, a questionnaire survey was conducted in October2013, targetingpeople living in Noto to capture people’s perceptions about seven landscape values: aesthetic, recreational,
learning, spiritual, historic, therapeutic, and cultural values. Questionnaire sheets were delivered to 8,000
residents of Noto, of which 1,662 responded (response rate 21%). The responses were digitized and analyzed
with GIS to visualize the spatial distribution of the seven landscape values as point-density surfaces. The
spatial variation of landscape values are presumably characterized by the distribution of scenic spots,
historical sites, and facilities or geographical features that help people link different landscape values todifferent places in Noto. As for regulating services, we have created a map of flood mitigation services
produced by Noto’s agroecosystems as an example. The volume of flood mitigation services in at a certain
place is closely related to the area of paddy fields: the larger the paddy field area, the greater the available
flood mitigation service.

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Finally, we analyzed the landscape quality of Noto because the types and volume of ecosystem services
available in a certain place are closely related to its biodiversity and land-use intensity. We introduced the“Satoyama Index” as a proxy indicator to evaluate the spatial variation of biodiversity in Noto using land-use
data for the years 1976 and 2006. Our analysis showed that Noto has rich heterogeneous landscapes
compared with the Kaga region with relatively higher SI values. However, those landscapes have been
deteriorating at a rapid rate over the past three decades. Over 40 percent of Noto’s landscapes experienced
loss of heterogeneity, presumably undermining the production base of ecosystem services.

19

Traditional Knowledge, Biodiversity, andGovernance: Linking Global and Local
Ryo Kohsaka(Associate Professor, Kanazawa University)

People face a dilemma at the forefront of biodiversity conservation. There is a desire to improve theeconomy and social welfare in the majority of countries, but there is also a need for biodiversity in theseareas. The so-called “mega-diverse” countries are rich with biodiversity, but face challenging tasks as aresult of the desire for development. Here we discuss how their economies and social needs can beaccommodated while conserving biodiversity.
Genetic Resources and Traditional Knowledge
The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) was signed in 1992, as a result of the world community’s
growing commitment to sustainable development. It has three objectives; (1) conservation of biologicaldiversity; (2) sustainable use of its components; (3) fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising out of theutilization of genetic resources.
For a legitimate use of genetic resources, a using country and a providing country should build trust witheach other through mutually-agreed terms and should share benefits including collective sampling,collective research, and monetary benefits. There are a large number of species, especially of fungi andother microbiota, which are hypothesized but not identified yet. Thus, genetic resources have further
unknown capacity to be discovered in the future. This means it is necessary to discuss the most appropriate
means for their appropriate use.
Ecosystem Services
Ecosystem services, which are obtained from ecosystems, consist of supporting services, provisioning
services, regulating services, and cultural services. As the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) defined,
all of them support human well-being, incorporating security, basic materials for a good life, health, goodsocial relations, and as their basis, freedom of choice and action. However, ecosystem services always havethe potential to change due to multiple drivers, and sooner or later these changes impact human well-being
to some extent. As the MA framework shows, we have to think of these changes and impacts with a holistic
view.
Multiple interactions between species are seen in ecosystem. All ecosystem services are produced by theseinteractions, while the species and their interactions differ depending on the ecosystem types.
Ecosystem services changes have caused various issues around the world, and these issues have spread
globally. In Japan, we face issues which cannot be resolved easily. Most of these issues, such as global
warming, waste, air pollution, and so forth, should be confronted in cooperation with other countries.
However, many scientists suggest that issue of urban-rural environments should be handled by our own
efforts.
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Depopulation in Noto
Noto is considered to be an area that maintains satoyama and satoumi landscapes and traditions that havesustained generations for centuries. However, the actual situation in Noto demonstrates the serious issue of
depopulation and population aging. The total population in Noto is expected to continue to decreased, andpeople over 64 years old will account for 50% of the population by 2030. Depopulation and population
aging are causing an increase of abondoned cultivated areas in Oku-Noto due to a lack of farmers.
Shiitake mushrooms
In snowy areas of Japan, farmers used to produce rice in summer and shiitake mushrooms in winter sinceclimate conditions were not suitable for growing vegetables. This system continued until the price ofshiitake mushrooms dropped, caused by a rapid increase in the import volume of shiitake mushrooms from
China in the 1980s. Moreover, the consumption volume of raw shiitake mushrooms also dropped. Against
this background, the production volume of raw shiitake mushrooms decreased in Ishikawa. However, as an
exception, the amount increased in the Oku-Noto area.
“Noto-Temari” – the highest rank of “Noto 115”, a kind of branded shiitake mushroom - is produced andshipped from Oku-Noto. Two main forces support the accelerated production of Noto-Temari. One of themis the Japan Kinoko Research Center Foundation, which provides workshops and information for farmers to
help them learn cultivation methods, etc. The other is Japan Agriculture (JA), which adapted a “joint
selection and joint sales” system. JA collects Noto-Temari from farmers, even if they ship only one NotoTemari, and then sorts the ranks and sells them. This means that each farmer doesn not have to grow a large
amount of Noto-Temari. This is the main reason why the production amount of raw shiitake mushrooms
increased in Oku-Noto.

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Assessing the Baseline Condition ofNakahechi, Kumano Pilgrimage Route andExplore its Conservation and Restoration
under the Context of Cultural Landscape
Shiwei Gou(Ph.D. Candidate, Kyoto University)

The UNESCO World Heritage Site called “Sacred Sites and Pilgrimage Routes in the Kii Mountain Range”
represents a special type of cultural landscape in Japan, “reflect(ing) the fusion of Shinto, rooted in theancient tradition of nature worship in Japan, and Buddhism, which was introduced from China and the
Korean Peninsula…and their surrounding forest landscape reflect a persistent and extraordinarily welldocumented tradition of sacred mountains over 1,200 years. The area, with its abundance of streams, rivers
and waterfalls, is still part of the living culture of Japan…” according to the brief description by UNESCO. It
is the first site in Japan registered as a “cultural landscape” and one of the only two pilgrimage roads
registered: the other being the “Way of St. James” in Spain.
Since the Kii Peninsula is a forested area, most of the pilgrimage routes linking the sacred sites look likelittle more than a forest trail that receives impacts from both natural and anthropogenic processes. Degradedtrail conditions can detract from their functional value as an important component of the cultural landscapeand other potential values such as their role in disaster recovery and as evacuation routes for emergency
situations.
A study on the trail degradation of one of the main routes, “Nakahechi”, was conducted in 2013, aiming to
identify the current physical condition of the trail and both environmental and cultural influencing factors inorder to further explore the meaning of trail conservation and degradation within the context of the culturallandscape. The research received a great deal of help from the staff of the Wakayama World Heritage Centeras well as from some warmhearted local people. The study conducted a point-sampling method for theunpaved section of Nakahechi between Takijiri-Oji and Kumano Hongu Shrine, covering a distance of about
38 km. 254 sample points were set made along the trail at 100m intervals, with maximum incision caused bysoil loss and root exposure identified as the most significant impact problems and measured as trail conditionindicators. Possible environmental factors including topographic and vegetation variables along with culturalvariables of trail design, trail maintenance, and use-related variables were also measured for each sample
point. Finally, each sample point was rated with a general-condition class rating system developed by the
researcher with the help of management staff.
The results show that, for the sampled part of the Nakahechi route, a generally good condition has been
maintained for the trail, and spatial variances can be seen for different segments of the trail. 35% of thesample points are in a good environmental location with gentle landform slopes and 11% are of a good
design with hillside style, which requires more dig and fill construction work. 77% of the stone-surfaced trail
and 62% of the step construction is located where the trails are of a comparatively erosion-susceptible grade.
This reveals that the stone-paved surface is not only of important historical value, but also plays an importantrole in protecting the trail. Different management approaches should be applied to different impact levels.

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Further study is needed to research the perceptions of users, including not only tourists but also local people,
and what and how landscape values are attached to this ancient trail.

23

IPBES in Biodiversity and Ecosystems
Management
Rodger Mpande(United Nations University Institute for the
Advanced Study of Sustainability)

The Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystems Services (IPBES) is a body established bygovernments to strengthen the science and policy interface for biodiversity and ecosystems services. The
platform will perform four key functions:-

Generate knowledge for policy makers at the appropriate level.
Perform regular and timely biodiversity and ecosystems services at the sub-regional, regional, andglobal levels.
Identify policy-relevant tools and methodologies for decision making.
Build capacity to improve the science-policy interface.

The platform is supported by four main bodies:--

The plenary, which is the overall decision-making body, responsible for the development andimplementation of the work program.
The Bureau, which is an advisory body to the Chair and is responsible for overall policy andadministrative issues
The Multidisplinary Expert Panel (MEP), an elected group of experts that carries out scientific andtechnical functions of the platform. The current MEP is interim and will be replaced in January 2015 at
the third plenary of the platform.
The Secretariat, based in Bonn. The secretariat ensures the effective functioning of the platform bysupporting the Plenary, Bureau and MEP. The Secretariat is headed by an Executive Secretary
supported by permanent staff members other secondments from governments and organizations.

These bodies are supported by various other mechanisms that include the Technical Support Unit based in
Trondheim, Norway; task forces; ad-hoc expert groups; and other stakeholder engagement strategies. To
support implementation, a partnership between four UN agencies ( FAO, UNDP, UNEP and UNESCO) has
been established.
A four-year work program for the platform has been developed, and its implementation will be guided by aconceptual framework. The IPBES Conceptual Framework is constructed on the premises that there are
dynamic interactions between human beings and ecosystems elements, and thus changes in humanconditions will bring about direct and indirect changes in ecosystems services. The new Conceptual
Framework also recognizes key constructs of the relationship between nature and the human being, Mother
Earth, and living in harmony with nature.
The use of multi knowledge systems in undertaking assessments is highly valued in the new Conceptual
Framework. In this direction a specific deliverable in the program is the production of policies and24

procedures for how to work with other knowledge holders, including indigenous people and local
communities.
The full details of the work program 2014 -2018, institutional framework, and budget is presented on the
IPBES website www.ipbes.net . More information can be requested from the Secretariat based in Bonnthrough respective MEP members.

25

Indicators for Co-management of
Production Landscapes:
Joining Science, Traditional and Local
Knowledge, Policy Expertise, and Consumers
for Sustainability
Henrik Moller(Professor, Centre for Sustainability, University ofOtago, New Zealand)

Achievement of sustainability requires a “social contract” – a collective agreement to not reduce theopportunities and well-being of current and future generations. People will collaborate if they feel respected,
have their values accepted, and are given meaningful and trusted roles in achieving sustainability. Building
identity and pride in one’s own place and community therefore underpins the quest for sustainability. It
requires collaborative planners and politicians to root governance and share power with local communities toachieve co-management and “environmentality”. Creating a common framework and sustainability
indicators that can be scored and interpreted by all stakeholders (farmers, business people, citizen scientists,
planners, policymakers) provides the basis for measuring group progress towards achieving sustainability
and resilience. Such indicators also allow learning about what works and does not work for sustainability,and helps bond the community by reinforcing and demonstrating the community’s collaboration. Integrationof top-down and bottom-up approaches brings collective strength. Scientists and planning experts with an“etic” (outsider) perspective can bring lessons from afar and take a bigger-picture view. Traditional andLocal Knowledge (TLK) holders have a deeper and more nuanced “emic” (insider) understanding of local
ecology, community, and economy that can lead to “local tuning” of strategies for sustainable living. Sharing
information, trust, and sound scholarship will drive accountability and learning, but this will requireconsiderable investment in community networking, sharing of information, and benchmarking performance.
The New Zealand Sustainability Dashboard (NZSD) is a recent example of on online tool for joining widelydispersed growers and industry managers together to create “social networking” for sustainability. It helps
market-accreditation schemes to drive consumer choice for ethical food and fibre production. Pricepremiums and preferential market access in Japan might result from having a satoyama-satoumi market
accreditation brand which acts like an eco-label and also celebrates the wider social and economic
dimensions of sustainability and uniquely Japanese values that it protects. The NZSD also automates
upscaling of sustainability indicators data for “State of the Environment” reporting to local governments(like Japan’s prefectures) and the Ministry for Environment or Ministry for Primary Production. Such “crossscale linkages” are important to guide top-down investment and policy and underscore the public “license tofarm”. The NZSD team has discovered that designing indictors for sustainability monitoring and learning isrelatively easy. Prioritizing indicators and creating defendable targets for measuring progress towards joint
goals is harder. Operationalising the indicator framework and triggering participation by all stakeholders, notjust professionals from government or research agencies, to score indictors and interpret the results is hardestof all. Sustained and collective care of the satoyama-satoumi systems could benefit from creating acommunity networking tool like a dashboard to link grassroots actors together, reinforce their vision andkowledge, create business opportunities for sustainable action, and salute their identity and wisdom. Japan
should rightfully be very proud of its wonderful satoyama and satoumi systems and the underlying
philosophy that has much to teach western approaches to environmental care.

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27

Kulturlandschaft and Satoyama:
Sustainable Management of SocioEcological Production Landscapes-Parallels and Differences between Austria
and Japan
Pia Kieninger(Institute of Integrative Nature Conservation
Research, Department of Integrative Biology &Biodiversity Research, University of Natural
Resources & Life Sciences, Vienna, Austria BOKU)

Austria, situated in the middle of Europe, is very similar to many other European countries along the Alps.
Like elsewhere in Central Europe, in Austria wilderness and/or untouched nature is very scarce. There aresome small remnants of virgin forest (counting 3% of the territory). Most of the Austrian landscape is“Cultural Landscape” (in Gernman “Kulturlandschaft”), shaped by centuries of human land-use.
This Kulturlandschaft is a hotspot not only of biodiversity, but also of biocultural diversity and is very
important for the maintenance of ecosystem services. This is the same as in the case of Japanese satoyama
landscapes. Satoyama and Kulturlandschaft, showing many similarities in topography, land-cover, and sociodemographic and economic situation, can both be defined as socio-ecological production landscapes(SEPLS).
Since the last 50-60 years, these highly-industrialized countries are facing the problems of urbanization, land
loss due to the increasing need for road transport infrastructure, and intensification of agriculture on the one
hand, and of aging populations, declining farming households, land abandonment, and consequently the lossof cultural landscape and its biocultural diversity on the other hand.
Japan and Austria have tried to handle the trend of dwindling cultural landscapes partly with different
strategies. While the two main landscape governance strategies in Austria are relying on subsidies to keep
the farmers in farmland management and relying on laws and regulations to protect existing precious culturallandscapes, Japan has a more human-centred approach. Japan has the focus more on the rural-urban
exchange and volunteers for the revival of the satoyama landscape. A good example therefore is thenationwide rice terrace ownership system (the so-called tanada ownership system; about 300 in Japan),where volunteers, mostly from the cities, engage in rice-farming management and help to save the landscapefrom abandonment (Kieninger et al., 2011; Takebe & Tomiyoshi, 2010). Volunteer landscape stewardshiphowever plays in Austria a rather subordinate role.
As both countries can learn from each other, comparative interdisciplinary/transdisciplinary studies between
Japan and Austria are needed in order to exchange experiences and to find and develop new innovative ideas
and solutions to a common challenge.

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29

Shunran-no-Sato: Rural Regeneration
Kiichiro Tada
(Chairman, Shunran-no-Sato)

Mr. Kiichiro Tada, a founder of Shunran-no-Sato (the Japan’s first farm-stay village) delivered a speech on
the idea and importance of rural communities. Shunran-no-Sato is a project aiming to revitalize ruralcommunities in the Noto Peninsula by providing local residents’ houses as accommodation for visitors.
Shunran-no-Sato’s goal is to revitalize not only Noto, but also other marginalized communities in Japan byproviding a successful model case from this project. Mr. Tada insisted that one of the key elements toachieve the success of Shunran-no-Sato is to secure economic income for each household at an average of
400,000 JPY (approx. 4,000 USD) per month through accommodating visitors. Recognizing the identity of
their own community encourages local residents’ mindset and will to attract outsiders to visit.
Mr. Tada added that the uniqueness of rural communities could be seen in local foods that are not available
anywhere else. The nostalgic scenery of a rural community comes not simply from the satoyama and satoumi
landscape, but from the people as well. The form of the people’s spirit and mind has existed in ruralcommunities, and their morals and parenting nourish the next generation who can then contribute to build
healthy future societies. Vigorous senior citizens with knowledge and managing of an adequate childcare
system are invaluable resources. This necessary human interaction creates sensation and makes thecommunity move. The gift of sensation is what Shunran-no-Sato can provide to visitors. If society
recognizes the importance of rural communities, the number of visitors will increase and secure income formore households in the community.
Shunran-no-Sato started with one household in 1996, and has grown to 47 households among 13 ruralcommunities now participating. 8,000 people have visited to the communities including some from overseas.
Although the number of visitors is important to secure income, Shunran-no-Sato prioritizes the depth ofhuman interaction between the community’s people and visitors. Filling visitors’ five senses is the priority,
not seeking or creating attractive touristic spots. Mr. Tada concluded his speech with how revitalizing ruralcommunities revitalizes youth. The strength of rural communities lies in their fast and smooth decisionmaking and implementation. He and his colleagues first spent five years discussing whether they should get
consensus from everyone or move forward with just people who agreed. Challenges always emerged when
they tried to deal with communities. Through the challenges that Shunran-no-Sato experienced, they chose to
run the project with the people who supported it, and to be flexible if people wanted to join or leave. The
important thing in community-building is to always be warm and keep a positive manner. Mr. Tada’s
empirical knowledge as a practitioner inspired the audience with the necessity of the proper attitude andmotivation for overcoming the problems of aging, depopulation, and lack of successors which many SEPLS
commonly face.

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The Role of Land Crabs (Chiromantes
haematocheir and C. dehaani) as Indicators
for Connectivity between Satoyama andSatoumiSeiji Yanai(Professor, Department of Environmental Science,
Kanazawa Prefectural University)

Two species of land crabs (Chiromantes haematocheir and C. dehaani) inhabit coastal forests in the Noto
Peninsula, Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan. The adult crabs inhabit coastal deciduous and evergreen forests. They
feed mainly on fallen leaves, but also harvest fresh leaves, mushrooms, nuts and invertebrates in the forests.
To remove toxic substances from the leaves and aid digestion, Chiromantes crabs either bury the leaves inthe soil or soak them in the water. Each adult female release tens of thousands eggs into the sea from July to
September each year. The number of females releasing eggs increases steadily from the new moon to the fullmoon, with smaller numbers observed when avian predators and/or humans are present. Both eggs and larvalstages of Chiromantes are important food sources for a variety of small marine fish, such as the stripedmullet (Mugil cephalus). M. cephalus, in turn, are fed on by larger fish species including the Japanese sea
perch (Lateolabrax japonicus). The larval stage (zoea) of Chiromantes species is both abundant and widelydistributed around the Noto Peninsula and, therefore, plays a crucial role in supporting rich marine faunal
diversity in the region. The crabs return to terrestrial habitats as they reach the juvenile stage between late
September and October. Degradation of coastal habitats poses a major threat to Chiromantes. For example,
juvenile Chiromantes are abundant in reed (Phragmites spp.) grasslands, with an average density of 100
individuals per m-2. Their density, however, declines significantly to approximately forty, five and zero
individuals per m-2 in concrete ground with fallen leaves, sandy soil, and concrete ground without fallen
leaves, respectively. Our presence/absence survey of Chiromantes in terrestrial environments andcomparison with historical data indicated that they have disappeared from at least twelve monitoring
locations in the Noto Peninsula.
Locations where C. haematocheirand C. dehaani have disappeared
typically suffer from coastal forestand grassland removal, housing
construction and/or construction of
concrete embankments. Concrete
embankments particularly, preventthe movement of Chiromantes.
Therefore, it is important to create
corridors so that Chiromantes cancontinuously utilise both marine andterrestrial habitats. We conclude that
ensuring the connectivity between
satoyama and satoumi is crucial for
supporting sustainable ecosystems in
the Noto Peninsula.

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5. SUMMARY OF PANEL DISCUSSION ON 11 FEBRUARY.
Panelists: Prof. Moller, Dr. Kieninger, Dr. Hashimoto, and Dr. Kohsaka
Moderator: Dr.Saito

The panelists responded to three main questions raised from the audience. The first was on the different
goals of restoring SEPLS in Austria (i.e., biodiversity restoration) and in Japan (i.e., attracting new people torural areas and increasing human well-being). Dr. Pia Kieninger highlighted that the Western’s worldview
sees humans rather outside of nature, and not as a part of nature. This means that Austrians put a focus on therestoration of nature, trying to keep the “detrimental” humans out of it. In the Eastern World, such as Japan,
maybe due to the religious belief of Buddhism and Shinto, people are regarded as a part of nature. Thus, thepeople’s wellbeing is the focus as well as an indicator of the health of the environment.
The second question related to how traditional local food and knowledge were communicated andmaintained in New Zealand society, particularly among the indigenous communities. Prof. Henrik Moller
responded that it is important to keep traditional knowledge, beliefs, and practices alive by allowing people
to have continuous access to these resources and local governance to apply their knowledge. For example,
Rakiura Māori (the indigenous people) retain rights to harvest sooty shearwater chicks from 30 offshoreislands where the birds are nesting. Traditional ecological knowledge (and the ethics of how to act towards
each other and towards the land and biodiversity) is often communicated to younger generations in the
Marae (their traditional gathering place). Prof. Moller also stressed that traditional and local knowledge does
not only refer to those from indigenous communities, but also includes those in wider society, farmers, andlocal foresters – all of whom have learned locally-tuned ecological knowledge. Dr. Kohsaka referred toinvasive alien species in New Zealand and rest of the world.
The final question was what were the key aspects are in creating a successful model like Shunran-no-Sato(the Japan’s first farm-stay village), and how to find and mentor successors in rural areas. Mr. Tada Kiichiro,
the chairperson of Shunran-no-Sato, highlighted that local leaders must identify what is required for aparticular area, implement change, demonstrate success, and lead the way for others. He added that “we alsoneed to create a social system or framework in which small landowners (who may only own 2-3 ha) cansurvive. The availability of mentors is also important. It is not necessary to seek successors from the next
generation – people who are only slightly younger than the mentors might be sufficient successors to fill thegaps until younger people come along.”
The take-home message from the panel discussion was that we need to move forward from purely focusing
on biodiversity restoration to bio-cultural restoration (i.e., reconnecting humans to the land and keeping
traditional knowledge, beliefs and practices alive). Co-designing and collaboration would be crucial for the
successful adoption of a SEPLS movement on a global scale. Globalization is often identified as a big threat
to the conservation and sustainability of rural communities. It has, however, also allowed us to become moreunited, and to share both ideas and solutions. The Noto Peninsula provides a great example of farmer-led
32

business initiatives and research that highlights the importance of connectivity between SEPLS for the rest of
the world. Further efforts into participatory approaches to sustainability monitoring are likely to add value
and depth to ongoing research. By learning from one another, we are taking a big step towards sustainable
land management.

33

6. DISCUSSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS REGARDING FIVE KEY
QUESTIONS
1) What are the key challenges and opportunities in management of socio-ecologicalproduction landscapes?
Key challenges emphasized during the workshop include demographic change represented by depopulation,
aging, and out-migration from rural to urban areas, expansion of abandoned land on the one hand andintensification of agriculture on the other, human-animal conflict, mono-cropping systems, disconnection ofurban and rural linkage, weak policy and science interface, misunderstanding of different cultures, andconventional values systems (Table 1). At the same time, various opportunities were identified to improveand transform management of SEPLS.

Table 1 Challenges and opportunities identified and discussed at the workshop
Challenges

Opportunities(1) Natural drivers
ClimateNatural events

Climate changes, natural succession
Natural disasters and extreme weather events
enhanced by climate change, natural
succession(2) Anthropogenic drivers
Demographic
Aging, depopulation
changes (shifts)
Land use
Urbanization, expansion of abandoned land,
human-wildlife conflict
Agricultural systems Mono-cropping (intensification), replacementof traditional crops with commercial crops
Technology drivers
Productivity, hybrid, GMO

Less snow, revival of indigenous species
New disaster management such as ecosystembased approach to enhance resilience

Industrial structures

Small-farmer-owned co-operatives
Direct marketing
Foodcoops
Organic farming
New “SEPLS” brand for local products
Direct marketing, international certification
schemes, crowdfunding, new tourism
Encourage communication between city andcountryside to bridge understanding
Re-look at values, regaining pride andconfidence, inclusive wealth

No jobs, no young leaders in agricultural
sectorMarket pressures

Domestic and international market pressure on
prices, conventional tourism
Cultural gaps
Marginalized knowledge (vs. mainstream),
misunderstanding of different cultures
Value systems
Loss of emotional connection/attachment tolandscapes, disatisfaction with basic living
conditions(3) Institutions, governance, and other indirect drivers
Rural and urban
Disconnect between rural and urban: urban
linkagepopulation does not feel any responsibility
towards rural people
Loss of local shops and stores
Large supermarkets
Same convenience everywhere
Scientific knowledge Lack of awarenessand assessment
Lack of capacity
Difficulty in trans-disciplinary research
Policy support andgovernance
Knowledge
generation

Legal restrictions
No policymakers involved at national scale,need national platform
Institutional structures do not facilitate
knowledge from diverse knowledge holders
34

Younger generations can come to rural areas
Environmentally-friendly, green infrastructure
New farmers, organic and natural products
from abandoned land
Renewable energies (biomass/PV)

Widen marketing boundaries, new producerconsumer models
Food cooperation by consumers, community
supported agriculture, investment-for-harvest
to share risks of harvest failure (also benefits
in good times)
Benefit from ES: pollination services
New Conceptual Framework
Co-operation with policy, in order to getawareness for the research results
Policy and legal reform
Regional, national platforms such as JPBES
Centralized information dissemination, use of
ICTCapacity building

Need to understand policy-science interface,
include practitioners, and build humancapital/education

Dialogue sessions, workshops, training

2) How can different stakeholders overcome challenges and promote collaboration indeveloping new co-management and co-governance models in harmony with nature?
We would like to propose the following six approaches to overcome the challenges and promotecollaboration in developing new co-management models.
(1) Stakeholder Engagement:- Collaboration depends on getting all the stakeholders involved throughout the process. Therefore, whoshould be stakeholders? Everybody is a stakeholder. Sharing a feeling of crisis (current situation) is key.
- Team effort will depend on understanding the values and priorities of diverse stakeholders; dialoguingwith various stakeholders is needed to discuss what benefits they get from SEPLS.
(2) Vision, Leadership and Local Networks:- Collaboration may require participants to rearrange their value system and mindset. Sharing a common
understanding/vision brings cohesive effort, though we don’t need to agree entirely for constructive
joint action (debate and creative tension suggest a variety of solutions).
- Leadership and successors are important parts of social capital to enable adaptation and transformationof SEPLS. Social networks may have to be strengthened or extended before local knowledge and energy
can be harnessed for a common cause (utilizing local networks).
(3) Reorganizing of Value Systems:- SEPLS are not just places of food production or tourism resources. They are systems that hold the valueof beliefts and ethics of people and society. We can make use of international recognition schemes like
GIAHS as opportunities for the community to reassess the value of their culture and natural capital,
Cultural identity and connection to place are key ingredients of the social capital that underpins the
future care and restoration of SEPLS.
(4) New Producer-Consumer Model:- Long supply chains for most provisioning services make consumers ‘blind’ to who has produced thefood or fibre they use and what care has been taken to produce it in a way that does or does not support
SEPLS. A method is needed to indirectly reconnect consumers and producers.
- Corporative Social Responsibility (CSR): There may be a need to help small business, subsidize
production, and sponsor entrepreneurship.
- Direct marketing, food co-ops, SEPLS-branding for local products, etc.
(5) Good Governance and New Commons Approach:- Intra- and inter-governmental cooperation provides cross-scale linkage to manage threats and capture
opportunities that can restrore and protect SEPLS. Local policymakers have a particularly important andactive role. Long-term commitment should be ensured because conservation, adaptation, and learning
can take a long time. Also, threats and drivers are likely to change in the coming decades –sustainability is more about a journey than a single destination. Good governance therefore emerges as afundamental requirement if SEPLS are to still be present in 100 years.

35

Multiple partners have roles. These could include “U-, J-, and I-turners”8, local residents, private sector
members (shifting from CSR to Creating Shared Value, or CSV), urban citizens, volunteers, etc.
(6) Information, Data Management and Knowledge sharing:- Trans-disciplinary research should be enhanced. Standardized data gathering, collaborative mapping andmeasuring where possible, and using qualitative information where more appropriate can all build
knowledge of what to do, where, and when, in order to sustain SEPLS. Collective strength comes fromscientists becoming involved with NPOs’ and NGOs’ activities and a network of “citizen scientists”
from the local community; local eyes see and care most, but their information has more value if it isstructured, collected, and analyzed to some degree.

3) What approaches, methods and techniques can be used to integrate traditional ecologicalknowledge and modern science to promote innovation and transformation?
Combining Traditional and Local Knowledge (TLK) with science is an important strategy for learning how
to maintain SEPLS while simultaneously building trust and collaboration between actors working at very
different scales. For instance, knowledge partnership can join local experts to national policymakers andinternational researchers. The resulting “cross-scale linkage” is a key for the transformation of SEPLS andtheir resilience to shocks and different drivers.
(1) Harnessing the power of interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary teams
Interdisciplinary research demands that scientists and humanities scholars, as well as scientists from different
academic disciplines, work together for the same goals. They share tools and methods in all aspects ofresearch: problem definition, research design, interpretation, and communication. Innovation and synergy
emerges if the disciplines genuinely interact throughout the entire research process, rather than simply
getting together at the end to give separate advice from within their own discipline (the latter is called“multidisciplinary” research).
Transdisciplinary research goes one step further by inviting the partnership of formal scholars withpractitioners – people who have experiential knowledge and who have “learned by doing”. TLK experts areoften amongst the latter, while reserve managers and policymakers also have knowledge forged byexperience of what does and does not work for sustainability.
The strongest application of SEPLS principles will emerge from a transdisciplinary approach, but this cansometimes be expensive and slower to get going. Innovation and new insights can also emerge frominterdisciplinary approaches amongst scholars, and while this is still a challenging process requiring
researchers to learn each other’s terms and trust their approaches, it is conceptually easier to achieve than fulltransdisciplinary partnership.
Innovation and transformation emerge from the integration of knowledge systems that are not normallybrought together. Formal scholarship by experts with a wider perspective, for example scientists andpolicymakers, can complement the experiential knowledge of local TLK experts. Local-tuning forsustainability can emerge and strength can be added when scientists bring knowledge from long traditions ofbroader scholarship. TLK often provides diachronic knowledge, or long runs of information from a few
places, while science often relies on more synchronic knowledge, or short data sets measured in the same
8

In Japan, people from rural areas who moved to big cities to attend school or find work and then later return to theirhometowns are called “U-turners”; those from rural areas who do not return to their hometowns but decide to live
permanently in cities on the way are dubbed “J-turners“; and big-city dwellers who relocate to new rural areas to live
and work are called “I-turners” (Yahata, 1997).

36

way from multiple places. TLK and local practitioners and citizen scientists can potentially provide massesof data and information referenced to local scales for scientific analysis, whereas conventional scientificresearch is often constrained by weak replication and limited coverage (Moller and MacLeod, 2013).
(2) Successful partnership depends on respectful processes
This type of innovation and transformation can only come from an established relationship between scienceand TLK experts. Respectful and equal participation mus underpin the reliability and completeness of theintegration of the two knowledge systems. In concrete terms, “cultural safety” measures or other safeguards
can be agreed to guide the relationship and intellectual property (IP) rights before the methods andtechniques are implemented (Moller et al. 2009). Knowledge-sharing for co-discovery abandons the more
traditional “extension approach” where experts discover solutions on their own terms and then try to impartthem to “end-users” afterwards. Instead, both TLK and science experts together become co-drivers from the
beginning to the end of the co-discovery process. This means that practitioners already own the research andare more likely to trust and act on its recommendations. Partnership between science and TLK does not mean
melting or blending the two together; the power of mutual peer-review comes from a respectful recognitionof differences and the value of each.
(3) Practical steps in TLK and science partnerships
Commonly encountered issues and approaches which may be negotiated and elaborated include:・Collaborative planning to set joint goals: “Where are we going and how are we going to get there
together?”;・

Negotiating the relationships and resource sharing (including research funds) between researchers and
TLK holders; Sharing research funding to allow full participation of TLK holders in research processes;

・Many round table discussions and face-to-face discussions with all stakeholders;・

Gathering local knowledge and communicating it back for local people to make collective sense of it.
Normally, practitioners are more isolated and learn in a more passive and serendipitous way;・

Potentially, protection of ownership of TLK by Intellectual Property (IP) agreements;

・Safeguarding publication rights and professional ethics. Locals must understand that professional
scientists need to submit articles for peer review no matter what the findings are, even if they show
unsustainable use or inconvenient truths;

・

Finding new ways of communicating that are not just academic, but which enable local stakeholders tounderstand and contribute. This does not mean peer-reviewed academic outputs are not needed, justthat they are not enough in themselves. This makes the whole research process more time-consuming,and scientists need resources for additional ways of contributing;・Creating tools that link local, national, and international actors and knowledge-holders. The
development of a Sustainability Dashboard in New Zealand is a recent example that deploys online
sustainability assessments and a web hub to create a sustainability network and share information forbenchmarking, indicator trend analysis, State of Environment reporting, and to drive consumer choice
for sustainably-produced food and fibre (Manhire et al. 2012); and・Media management. Locals often wish to speak for themselves and scientists want to speak about theircontribution and the limits of scientific certainty.

(4) Specific applications of research partnerships
TLK provides insight not only on all aspects of resource use, but also about relationships between people andthe environment and a holistic understanding of how SEPLS work. It also helps monitor ecosystem and37

biocultural health, i.e., the linkage between people and ecology. Commonly-recurring specific applications of
TLK include:・Knowledge about hunting and ecosystem rhythms and changes;

・Food processing, storage, and sharing;・

Traditional crafting;・

Disease and pest control;・Medicinal plants and therapies (bio-piracy is a potential risk here and verification of benefits may beneeded/helpful for marketing);

・Old agricultural land management practices (farmers store old equipment, and this can indicate changes
and past practices);・Historical and cultural values, and the way these have changed; and・

The meaning of ancestral sayings and stories as guides to environmental ethics and sound management(Wehi, 2009).

Both science and TLK are constantly adapting and being updated (Berkes, 2011). Indeed, adaptation andstrengthening of TLK can come through dialogue with science and vice-versa. This partnership accelerates
learning and adaptation. Transmission of techniques to younger people keeps the knowledge alive andgrowing. TLK can be used for training young people in customary activities and to rebuild their connection
to place and identity. The coalition of science and TLK can provide new ways of using materials andapplying knowledge, including new ideas for marketing and economic benefits.
(5) Methods and techniques for transdisciplinary research
In addition to general approaches above, there are several techniques that could be applied on the ground:・

Rapid appraisal methods can be applied to score “Cultural Health Indicators” of biodiversity andenvironmental health, supporting “biocultural” conservation and restoration and simultaneously
informing biodiversity conservation and restoration (Townsend et al., 2004).

・Community based “cultural mapping”, or preparing maps to collect knowledge in a different way thatsometimes resonates more with TLK than science).

・Documentation and reporting of existing knowledge and oral history to prevent it from getting lost andmaking it available to scientists to help co-discovery of sustainability solutions.

・

Literature and oral archive surveys, e.g., food culture and old records of past meals.

・“Cultural keystone” species (Garibaldi and Turner, 2004) can be identified as priorities for management
and restoration. These are species that are pivotal in maintaining knowledge, identity and commitment
to environmental care for local communities and cultures. Often they will also be important species forecosystem functioning, or “ecological keystone species”, but they might also be the keys for social
connections and kinship relationships, or iconic “flagships” for the relationship between people andplace. Seen in the SEPLS context, restoration efforts are about restoring links between people and theireconomy with ecology, so reinstating or maintaining links is just as important as restoring ormaintaining actual biodiversity.

Many case studies of partnerships between TLK and science are described in IPBES’s recent working group(UNESCO, 2014). Some case studies discussed in our workshop included:・In the Philippines, local people revitalized traditional knowledge and brought it to the government for38policy formation.
・

In projects to identify the needs of local communities, women drew maps on the ground. Men tend to
focus on a-market-based economy, while women focus on daily life.

・A New Zealand sustainability assessment for ‘Tītī’ (sooty shearwater chick sustainability) combined
population simulation modelling, TLK historical records, traditional monitoring signs, and Catch per
Unit Effort. Computer models could simulate and corroborate the effectiveness of traditional teachings
for sustainability.

(6) Joining quantitative and qualitative information
Science relies on and trusts quantified information over written qualitative information, while TLK cansometimes mistrust numbers and be skeptical of written records without oral verification by local experts.
Wider sustainability requires consideration of deeper spiritual and intangible values that cannot always be
reduced to numbers. A huge benefit of joining science and TLK can be the inclusion of both qualitative andquantitative indicators of sustainability, but models must be developed for building trust in both types of
information if all stakeholders are to collaborate and respect each other’s contributions.
In addition to qualitative and visualizing methods, quantitative approaches could also be applied to interview
transcripts. For example, Qualitative Data Analysis (QDA), Discourse analysis, and Critical Content
Analysis can provide rigorous and repeatable ways of bridging qualitative and quantitative information.
Discourse is first coded into key themes identified by formal Qualitative Research methods using NVivo or
similar software. The frequency (presence/absence of mentions of the theme) or word counts (a proxymeasure for degree of emphasis) associated with each code can then be analyzed by formal statisticalmethods and compared by gender, age, ethnicity, role, area, culture, etc. (McCarthy et al., 2013).
“Choice Modelling” is an ecological economics technique for measuring the trade-offs between different
values or choices in environmental care. The model measures the “utility” (a proxy measure of well-being or
benefit) from alternative choices, which can naturally embody intangible values (Chhun et al., 2013). This
technique allows reintegration of values and beliefs in quantitative ways and avoids reductionism that cancause problems for science-TLK partnerships.
Scientific studies can calibrate TLK and cultural-health indicators against scientifically-measured
sustainability indicators; for example, Catch Per Unit Effort (CPUE) of a traditional harvest is often used in
TLK to assess resource abundance (Moller et al., 2004). Ecological field studies can check whether CPUE islinearly related to wildlife abundance and test whether CPUE can warn reliably of declining abundance or
guide successful restoration (e.g., once invasive species are removed or harvest pressure is adjusted).
(7) Mutual support, cross-validation and increasing management choices
TLK and science both offer the other a type of “peer review”, triangulation, or test for reliability.
Conventional science can validate local knowledge and vice-versa. Feedback to policymakers and society isthereby more reliable and a consensus between stakeholders more likely, which in turn encourages joint
action for sustainability. Surprises and new syntheses can emerge, but this partnership also helps identify
contested beliefs and provides safety to SEPLS management by identifying uncertainties and keeping options
open.
The ways people make sense of the world and categorize elements of SEPLS can vary between knowledge
systems and sometimes offer alternative points of view and unusual indicators. For example:
・

Farmers may categorize species differently than scientific taxonomy does.

・

Subtle and locally-grounded signs of climate change have emerged from TLK, and climate science has
provided a wider overview and identification of causes.
39

・

Different signs can guide farming decisions. For example, the way snow melts can indicate the timingof farming actions.

・

Local communication shares knowledge about changes in fishing stocks at the local scale that cannot bemonitored at national science-based monitoring and management scales.

・

TLK detailed knowledge can enable the adaptation of resource use after perturbations. In one example,
the migration route of yellowtail fish changed after a typhoon in the sea around Japan, and local fishers
were able to predict where netting would remain productive.

・In some tea plantation, TLK experts understand the role of wind in reducing pests and plan shelter tomaintain this regulating ecosystem service.

・

Impacts of disasters can be lessened by traditional teachings. For example, Japanese fishers take theirships out to sea when a tsunami is coming. In Malaysia, people living in the rainforest know to stayclose to the trunks of large trees when trees are falling.

Sustainability and resilience emerges from identifying as many choices for intervention as possible, and thenselecting the best choice to reach agreed goals. The combination of TLK and science helps broaden the
choice set and sharpen the decision of how to respond. TLK especially adds locally-grounded and practicalresponses while science can bring options from far away or add technological strategies to help mitigation
and adaptation.
(8) Identification of causation: the key to effective management
Scientists and TLK experts often agree on what is happening (e.g., trends in resource abundance or
biodiversity), but they agree less often about why certain changes are happening (Newman and Moller, 2005).
TLK tends to be more descriptive and monitors patterns, while science starts in the same place but then tries
to test why a pattern occurs. Some TLK may have metaphysical explanations for what causes change,
whereas scientists consider only biophysical mechanisms and work to test causes.
Even if TLK experts ascribe a different reason for an observed change than scientists do, it is important toconsider that there might be some social reasons why their explanation has been believed by local people fora long time. These beliefs may be strong reinforcers of sustainable (or unsustainable) behavior in a local
community, so understanding TLK perceptions can help identify enablers and constraints for transforming or
sustaining successful management.
Reliable identification of causation is very important for identifying where and when to intervene in order tochange trends or engineer new features of SEPLS to steer them towards more sustainable and resilient states.
Knowing the cause of a problem also helps predict where and when a proposed solution is more likely towork. Partnership of TLK and science can lead to less expensive, more efficient, and more equitable
investments in strategies to retain, restore, and enhance ecosystem services and biodiversity in SEPLS likethose in the Noto Peninsula.

4) How can the IPBES Conceptual Framework be transferred/tuned to local application?
In the process of applying the IPBES Conceptual Framework (CF) to local ecosystem assessment, we need
the involvement of (local) practitioners/stakeholders to fully take into account the linkage between “qualityof life” and “nature”. More fundamentally, the CF could better support SEPLS if it recognized the feedback
from having a healthy society and economy to being better able to manage and support biodiversity andecosystem services. Maintaining all these services helps humans and their communities, nations, and cultures
maintain a presence in the landscape. Such a presence is essential to monitor, plan, intervene, invest, andcollaborate to maintain biodiversity and the SEPLS itself. We therefore introduced a new feedback loop for40

the CF to emphasise the huge amount of reciprocity involved. This led workshop participants to call for morepositive language in the CF and for it to recognise the benefits that people confer on the land and biodiversity.
The importance of data collection and sharing for each of the CF’s components (building blocks) was also
highlighted as having common ground with the assessment. The IPBES CF should recognize positive aspectsof anthropogenic drivers and environmental impacts as well as synergistic relationships between“anthropogenic assets” and “nature‘s benefits to people”. Our discussion also pointed out that both
ecosystem services and anthropogenic assets should consider various types of capital (stocks) as sources ofbenefits and services to human beings. One of the key challenges lies in how to overcome the gap between
policy- and scientific/temporal/spatial scales.

5) What are new research areas or frontiers that should be explored in the next five years(joint research proposals as outcomes of this workshop)?
Finally, the workshop explored new research areas or frontiers that should be explored in the next five years
as part of the ongoing IPBES process. The IPBES CF, which had been modified to incorporate expert
opinions, helped participants explore new research areas and topics and to clarify the relationship between
the CF and research topics or needs for policy support and capacity development as indicated by Fig. 3.
below.
(1) New research areas in assessment and knowledge generation that were identified include:・ Deepening the scientific basis for understanding regional/local ecosystem such as nutrient cycling,
pollination, and decomposition chains;・ Synergy/tradeoff analysis between different ecosystem services as well as between policy interventions
and ecosystem services;・ Long supply chains of ecosystem services for reorganization of the value chain of consumer products;
・ Clarifying the relationship between well-being and other components in different settings (including
negative aspects of ecosystem services such as the effects of wildlife damage on human well-being);
・ Establishing measurement of well-being and its relation to ecosystem services;
・ Different from place to place in anthropogenic drivers to be taken into account in assessment (landdegradation, wildlife-human conflict, and abandonment of farmland/forest would also be among theanthropogenic drivers in some countries);
・ Creating new indicators as well as integration and compilation of data, by GIS for instance, for sharing
common ground among different stakeholders;・ Valuation of ecosystem services at different scales;
・ Inclusive knowledge generation, bridging traditional local knowledge and modern scientific; and・ International comparative studies on the best practices of rural development and its transferability toother areas.
(2) Needs in policy support and capacity development include:
・
・
・
・
・

Application of studies in developing countries;
Attractiveness/revitalization of isolated/less preferred places;
Learning from successes and best practices through international comparative studies;
Clarifying policy effects on nature and ecosystem services; andIdentifying appropriate scales and levels for co-management of ecosystems.

41

Figure 3 New research areas or frontiers in assessment and knowledge generation in relation to the IPBES Conceptual Framework(Source) United Nations Environment Programme (2013) Report of the second session of the Plenary of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services,
IPBES/2/17.

42

7. CONCLUSIONS
Overall Summary:Given the recent research activities and international initiatives on socio-ecological production landscapes,
this workshop was organized to share information and ideas on data, methodologies, and ongoing research
activities, and to explore future research directions for developing new co-management and co-governancemodels for these landscapes. The workshop explored the following five key questions:(1) What are the key challenges and opportunities in management of socio-ecological production
landscapes?
(2) How can the different stakeholders overcome challenges and promote collaboration in developing
new co-management and co-governance models in harmony with nature?
(3) What approaches, methods, and techniques can be used to integrate traditional ecologicalknowledge and modern science to promote innovation and transformation?
(4) How can the IPBES Conceptual Framework be transferred/tuned to local application?
(5) What are new research areas or frontiers that should be explored in the next five years (joint
research proposals as outcomes of this workshop)?

Key Message 1:
We actively discussed all of these questions in breakout group sessions and then reported back to a plenary
session to integrate our discussions. Key challenges emphasized during the workshop include demographic
change represented by depopulation, aging, and out-migration from rural to urban areas, expansion ofabandoned land, human-animal conflict, mono-cropping systems, disconnection of urban and rural linkage,
weak policy and science interface, misunderstanding of different cultures, conventional values systems, andlack of capacity.

Key Message 2:
We proposed six approaches to overcome these challenges and promote collaboration in developing new comanagement models: (1) stakeholder engagement; (2) vision, leadership, and local networks; (3)reorganizing of value systems; (4) new producer-consumer model; (5) good governance and new commons
approach; and (6) information, data management, and knowledge sharing.

Key Message 3:
Co-discovery from sharing knowledge is likely to identify more choices for managing SEPLS while
simultaneously building the trust and social capital necessary to apply collaborative intervention to solve
problems and capture opportunities for people, profit, and the planet. Cultural mapping, rapid appraisal
methods to score Cultural Health, and gathering of oral histories are some of a growing set of formal
research techniques for a Traditional Local Knowledge (TLK) and science partnership. Cultural Keystone
Species can be identified for priority research and intervention. Gathering locally-grounded and largevolume of adequate and reliable (soft and hard) data from TLK experts and citizen scientists gives added
power, replication, and representativeness for subsequent scientific analysis.

Key Message 4:
In the process of applying the IPBES Conceptual Framework (CF) to local ecosystem assessment, local
practitioners/stakeholders must be involved in order to fully take into account linkages between “quality oflife” and “nature”. Promoting a healthy society, with a strong identity and collaborative approach to equality
is key to enhancing biodiversity and ecosystem services. The IPBES CF should capture positive aspects ofanthropogenic drivers and environmental dis-services as well as synergetic relationships between
43

“anthropogenic assets” and “nature‘s benefits to people”. It was also pointed out in the discussion that both
ecosystem services and anthropogenic assets should include consideration of various types of capital orstocks as sources of benefits and services that human beings can receive. One of the key challenges lies in
how to overcome the gap between policy- and science-temporal/spatial scales.

Key Message 5:
New research areas or frontiers in assessment and knowledge generation to be explored in the next five years
include investigations of:(1) abandonment of forest and farmland;(2) ecosystem services synergy and trade-offs;(3) long supply chains of ecosystem services and reorganization of value chains;(4) appropriate scales and levels for co-management;(5) maintaining pollination and decomposition chains in ecosystems;(6) land degradation;(7) food security;(8) nutrient cycles;(9) human wealth and well-being through filling in the missing arrow between nature and human well-being
in the IPBES CF;(10) measuring human well-being and its relation to ecosystem services;(11) watershed management;(12) wildlife damage and human-wildlife conflicts;(13) integration and compilation of information by GIS;
(14) creating new indicators (e.g. landscape evaluation);(15) valuation of ecosystem services at different scales;(16) inclusive knowledge generation, bridging traditional local knowledge and scientific knowledge;(17) landscape governance strategies between different countries/cultures; and(18) analyisis of best practice examples of rural development and its transferability to other places in ruralarea.
Needs for policy support and capacity development were also identified, including enhancing attractivenessand revitalization of isolated or less-preferred places. There is a need to learn from successes and bestpractices (through international comparative studies)

Next steps:
Based on our discussion at the workshop, we came up with six potential actions or programs that we should
consider as next steps:(1) Organize a dialogue workshop with local stakeholders in Noto to facilitate the interface of science, policy,
and society, and encourage further partnership and co-management.
(2) Organize a workshop to develop a common data set and maps to integrate various research projects in
Noto and Ishikawa, and in the Hokuriku region.
(3) Develop international joint workshop proposals to the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST),Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS), or other potential funding sources. For example:-

Joint workshop on partnership between traditional and local knowledge and scientific, social, andeconomic scholarship in New Zealand;

44

-

-

Conference/workshop between Japan (UNU, Kanazawa University) and BOKU, relating to“Satoyama preservation strategies in Austria and Japan” with sections such as “terrace landscapes”
and “consumer-producer relationships”; andSmall expert sessions before or after existing international conferences, symposia, and forums.

(4) Conduct comparative case studies between UNU, Kanazawa University, and BOKU. Research could bedone either by researchers or students, for example as a master’s thesis.
(5) Create a student exchange / “Cultural landscape internship” program between UNU, Kanazawa
University, and BOKU, relating to the common case study research. Students can be matched to “partners”
and “partner regions” in the other country, in order to broaden their horizons and experience how scienceis done in the other country. This could be a kind of “Cultural landscape internship exchange” for students.
(6) Exchange knowledge between locals/stakeholders and scientists in New Zealand, Austria, and Japan
E.g., “study groups” from the three countries are visiting each other in order to see best-practice examples
in other countries.

45

REFERENCES
Berkes, F. 2011. Sacred Ecology (3rd edition).
Chhun, S., Thorsnes, P., and Moller, H. 2013. Preferences for Management of Near-Shore Marine
Ecosystems: A Choice Experiment in New Zealand. Resources 2:406-438.
Garibaldi A, Turner N. 2004. Cultural keystone species: Implications for ecological conservation andrestoration. Ecology and Society 9: 1
IPBES. 2012. Catalogue of Assessments on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. available at
http://ipbes.unepwcmc-004.vm.brightbox.net/.
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APPENDICES
Participants list
The Participants List is divided into three categories as follows: “Workshop”, participants of the workshop
on February 10-11; “Presentation”, speakers who presented during the workshop or seminar on February 11;“Report writing”, participants who contributed to writing this report on February 12. The participants arelisted in alphabetical order.

WorkshopPresentation

Report Writing

Archana Jayaraman

Chen Siew Fong

Archana Jayaraman

Chiho Kamiyama

Henrik Moller

Chiho Kamiyama

Chen Siew Fong

Kiichiro Tada

Chen Siew Fong

Evonne Yiu

Osamu Saito

Harumi Akiba

Harumi Akiba

Pia Kieninger

Henrik Moller

Henrik Moller

Rodger L. Mpande

Maximillian Spiegelberg

Hiroyoshi Sano

Seiji Yanai

Osamu Saito

Koji Ito

Shizuka Hashimoto

Pia Kieninger

Koji Nakamura

Shiwei Gou

Shiwei Gou

Maximillian Spiegelberg

Wataru Suzuki

Shogo Nakamura

Mitsuyuki Tomiyoshi

Wataru Suzuki

Osamu Saito

Yuki Fukuda

Pia Kieninger

Yohsuke Amano

Rina Tanaka
Rodger L. Mpande
Ryo Kohsaka
Ryohei Yamashita
Sakiko Kawabe
Seiji Yanai
Shizuka Hashimoto
Shiwei Gou
Shogo Nakamura
Ushio Nishikawa
Wataru Suzuki
Yuki Fukuda
Yohsuke Amano

48

Workshop ParticipantsArchana Jayaraman

Maximillian Spiegelberg

Sakiko Kawabe

Master’s Student, Institute for theDoctoral Student, Graduate School of

Master’s Student, Graduate School of

Advanced Study of Sustainability,

Global Environmental Studies, Kyoto

Human and Socio-Environmental

United Nations University

University, Japan

Studies, Kanazawa University, Japan

Chiho Kamiyama

Mitsuyuki Tomiyoshi

Seiji Yanai

Project Researcher, Institute for the

Researcher, Graduate School ofProfessor, Ishikawa Prefectural

Advanced Study of Sustainability,

Human and Socio-Environmental

University, Japan

United Nations University

Studies, Kanazawa University, Japan

Chen Siew Fong

Osamu Saito

Associate Professor, Kyoto

Environment Consultant, Regional

Academic Program Officer, Institute

University, Japan

Environmental Planning Inc.

for the Advanced Study of

Shizuka Hashimoto

Evonne Yiu

Sustainability, United Nations

Shiwei Gou

University

Doctoral Student, Graduate School of

Research Fellow, Institute for the

Global Environmental Studies, Kyoto

Advanced Study of Sustainability,

Pia Kieninger

United Nations University

Senior Researcher, University ofHarumi Akiba

University, Japan

Natural Resources and Life Sciences,

Shogo Nakamura

Vienna, Austria (BOKU)

Research Fellow, Graduate School of

Research Associate, Institute for the

Global Environmental Studies, Kyoto

Advanced Study of Sustainability,

Rina Tanaka

United Nations University

Master’s Student, Graduate School ofHenrik Moller

University, Japan

Global Environmental Studies, Kyoto

Ushio Nishikawa

University, Japan

Associate Professor, Kanazawa

Professor, Centre for Sustainability,
University of Otago, New Zealand

University, Japan
Rodger L. Mpande
Member, Multidisciplinary Expert

Wataru Suzuki

Hiroyoshi Sano

Panel, Intergovernmental Platform

Satoyama Initiative Coordinator,

Lecturer, Kanazawa Seiryofor Biodiversity and Ecosystem

Institute for the Advanced Study of

University, Japan

Services

Sustainability, United Nations
University

Koji Ito

Ryo Kohsaka

Postdoctoral Fellow, Center for

Associate Professor, Kanazawa

Yuki Fukuda

Regional Collaboration, Kanazawa

University, Japan

Director, Snow Parrot Ltd., New

University, Japan

Zealand
Ryohei Yamashita

Koji Nakamura

Lecturer, Ishikawa Prefectural

Yohsuke Amano

Professor, Kanazawa University,

University, Japan

Programme Associate, Institute forJapan

the Advanced Study of Sustainability,
United Nations University

49

Presentations

50

United Nations University
Institute for the Advanced Study of Sustainability(UNU-IAS)
53-70, Jingumae 5-chome
Shibuya-ku, Tokyo, 150-8925, Japan
March 2014
Email: unuias@ias.unu.edu
Website: ias.unu.edu