Appreciate the ephemeral side of nature
The country'senvironment, culture and economy have influenced its relationship with nature. Japan's geographical and tectonic location on the "Ring of Fire" means it is subject to major natural hazards, notably earthquakes and volcanism. The violence of these phenomena has permeated the country's culture. In the past, a legend attributed earthquakes to the movement of a catfish, Namazu, living in the depths of the Earth. Some deeply-rooted popular beliefs see natural disasters as the punishment of mankind. To better understand the Japanese relationship with their environment, we must also examine it in the light of Shintoism and Buddhism. Shintoism celebrates communion with nature, with venerated deities whose habitats are springs, mountains or rocks. In Tōhoku, the mountains of the Akita region or the isolated sanctuaries of Yamagata (Dewa Sanzan) embody these sacred places, where Man connects with the invisible forces of the landscape. Rice festivals are community ceremonies that have been held for over 2,000 years, in homage to the fertility deities. Buddhism, for its part, teaches us not to become attached to things, emphasizing impermanence. Hanami, the Japanese custom of appreciating the beauty of blossoming trees in springtime, illustrates this attitude of contemplating the ephemeral side of life, in the image of this extreme beauty that the slightest breath of wind can dissipate. This learning of detachment enables us to accept the vagaries of life and move forward. Tokyo has been destroyed and rebuilt several times in its history. In Tōhoku, too, towns such as Rikuzentakata and Kesennuma were rebuilt after the 2011 tsunami, and these reconstructions now incorporate in-depth reflections on the relationship with nature and risk.
When development brutalizes nature
The economy has also helped shape the Japanese relationship with their environment. With the Meiji era in the 19th century, industrialization began, resulting in a relationship of destruction and predation of nature, which accelerated after the Second World War. Coastlines were developed for vast industrial complexes. Tokyo, for example, sacrificed its coastline to the development of its port and Haneda airport. In the cities, waterways were concreted over, and the air and rivers suffered from pollution. On the fishing front, commercial whaling resumed in 2019 despite protests from the international community. Over the centuries, mountains have suffered from deforestation. Erosion has led to the formation of sand, and conifers have gradually replaced the primary forest, laurisylva. So the traditional image of "blue pines and white sands" is the result of a man-made construction. The decline in biodiversity can be illustrated by the drop in firefly populations. But in Tōhoku, some forest ecosystems such as those in Towada-Hachimantai National Park have benefited from conservation efforts to halt the decline of local species.
Japanese gardens or nature created by man
Japanese gardens are an intellectual construction. Earth and water are symbolic elements, represented by the ponds, which visitors can contemplate or walk around. Extremely elaborate, revealing great sensitivity and aesthetics for each season, they are above all the projection of a paradise. Zen or dry gardens, almost exclusively mineral, are spaces that invite meditation. Although less famous than those of Kyōto, some gardens in Tōhoku, such as the landscaped garden of the Entsu-in temple in Matsushima, are veritable havens of contemplation, adorned with moss, maples and Buddhist symbols.
National Parks
The country has many different types of protected areas, including 34 national parks, 56 "quasi-national" parks and prefectural nature parks. Their purpose is to preserve extremely varied ecosystems. In Tōhoku, Bandai-Asahi National Park offers a mosaic of mountains, volcanoes and lakes, while Sanriku Fukko (literally "Sanriku recovery") illustrates the desire to revive a coastline devastated by the tsunami, through tourism focused on nature and remembrance.
From the destruction of nature to the environmental movements
In the course of its history, Japan has experienced a number of serious accidents that have provoked reactions and given rise to the first movements that could be described as environmentalist. At the end of the 19th century, the discharge of effluent from the Ashio copper mine contaminated rivers and rendered land infertile, sparking revolt. In 1910, this event fueled a speech by Shōzō Tanaka, advocating the reappropriation of "natural harmony", drawing on Confucianism and Buddhism. Today, it is considered a forerunner of the ecology movement. In 1973, Japan also experienced a very serious industrial accident at Minamata, resulting in a mercury spill that polluted the natural environment and contaminated the entire food chain, causing death and serious illness. As with the Fukushima nuclear accident in 2011, when it became apparent that safety systems had been under-designed to cope with the risk of flooding, the accident was hotly contested. Demonstrations by citizens bearing paper sunflowers symbolized this desire to restore the balance with nature. The 1970s also saw the emergence of another vision of agriculture, based on agroecological methods. Masanobu Fukuoka published The Revolution of a Single Strand of Straw, the inspiration for Permaculture today. However, organic farming in Japan is underdeveloped, and you'll find very few organic stores. This is due to the stranglehold of cooperatives, the absence of government subsidies, and consumers' taste for standardized, packaged products. However, civil society is mobilized around environmental issues. Tokyo residents, for example, have decided to clean up the city's coastline. Thanks to their efforts, a beach is now accessible to bathers, which had not been the case since the 1970s due to pollution. On August 24, 2023, Japan begins the discharge of treated water from the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant. These operations are scheduled to take place over the next 30 years. Japan's neighbors (including China, South Korea, Taiwan, Russia and the Philippines) were opposed to the project, as were Japanese fishermen and some environmental organizations. Tōhoku remains at the heart of the Japanese energy and environmental debate, between demands for transparency, trust and the will to move forward.
Towards zero waste
Certain ancestral values are part of Japanese culture, such as the fight against waste and living simply, without the superfluous. This " wabi-sabi-inspired " way of life facilitates the deployment of the "zero waste" approach promoted in the country. Add to this a regulatory framework (selective collection) and awareness-raising, and you'll see a host of attractive initiatives flourish. These include furoshiki, or the art of wrapping with recycled fabrics, tawashi, a sponge made from used fabric, andoriculi, a bamboo ear pick. The Mainichi Shimbun newspaper is made from a recycled paper composed of water and seeds; once you've finished reading it, simply plant it... and you'll have flowers. The reuse of broken objects is also made possible with the kintsugi technique. In some Tōhoku towns, such as Morioka or Aizu-Wakamatsu, community workshops for repairing or reusing waste are springing up, often linked to traditional crafts.
Climate and air quality: burning issues
In the late 1990s, the city of Tokyo embarked on an anti-diesel policy. The campaign focused on health and was based on measures to reduce the number of diesel vehicles. At the same time, the government issued binding regulations to this effect. Between 2001 and 2011, the concentration of fine particles in Tokyo fell by 55%. However, in 2010, the government did an about-face... in the name of the fight against the greenhouse effect (diesel being considered less emissive than petrol). Sales of diesel cars increased by 80% between 2012 and 2014! The question of energy transition remains a topical challenge in Japan, where the government's objectives fall short of the climate challenge, namely carbon neutrality by 2050. Fossil fuels continue to dominate the country's energy mix. In 2020, major industrialists, urged on by their customers and supported by a powerful business lobby, asked the government to increase the country's share of renewable energies by 2030. On the transport front, active mobility, including cycling, is growing in Japan, particularly in the big cities, combined with intermodality (bike and train). The rural areas of Tōhoku, which are undergoing demographic ageing, could play a pilot role in the development of local renewable energies, such as wind power or biomass, already tested in certain valleys of Akita prefecture.
