Commons of Japan Book 1: Water and Forest

A forest that falls out of use is not protected — it becomes invisible.

The story usually told is that commons were destroyed by enclosure. But in Japan, the opposite also happened: once people no longer needed firewood or grass fertilizer, they stopped entering the mountains. No one took anything — yet the resources slipped out of management.

This book visits Japanese commons that are still in use. Lake Shinji's shijimi fishers voluntarily limit themselves to three hours and 90 kilograms a day. Residents of Yanagawa reversed a plan to fill in its canals. Plus Gujo Hachiman's water boats, Nozawa Onsen's outer baths and Nozawa-gumi, the forest that Okuizumo's tatara ironworks rotated on a 30-year cycle, Nishi-Awakura Village's 100-year forest plan, Ise Jingu's Shikinen Sengu, and the Shiretoko 100 Square Meter Movement.

The revised edition adds a new chapter on the frameworks surrounding rivers. River law, water quality, sewers, and paddy irrigation each operate as separate systems — using the Shimanto River as an example, the book traces where the label "Japan's last clear stream" diverges from the numbers: ayu catches falling from 1,000 tons to 20.

What this book covers:

• Why continued use is what keeps a resource alive
• The tragedy of under-use — collapse in the opposite direction from Hardin
• What Meiji-era land classification and the Iriai Forest Modernization Act did to custom
• How tacit knowledge is handed down — why the Shikinen Sengu cycle is 20 years
• The distance between being protected by names and ordinances, and actually surviving

Neither easy nature worship nor rural idealization. Not a book of answers — a book of questions.