Emergence process of governance for restoring an unmanaged ecosystem: comparison of two activities at the Satoyama forest and coastal pine forests in Fukutsu City, Japan

Abstract

The underuse of natural resources in the Satoyama landscape, a Japanese socio-ecological production landscape, is one of the factors causing a crucial biodiversity loss in Japan. For biodiversity conservation in the Satoyama landscape, how to build a governance system for ecosystem conservation activities is a challenge. This study reveals a governance system's emergence and development process in two conservation activities linked with administrative planning in the same municipality. Furthermore, we discuss the stakeholders' role in the process and how to build a governance system that can restore the relationship between the people and the Satoyama landscape. The data for this study were collected through interview surveys, observation surveys, and literature reviews of each conservation activity. We presented the structural understanding of what events, actions, and changes occurred among the stakeholders during the processes and identified the crucial phases of the process. Through this study, there were “sharing issues and recognizing values" and "organizing" in the emergence process of governance. In the context of difficulty securing the government’s initiative, the complementing role of leading a governance system by connecting stakeholders across scales is necessary. Furthermore, under the deviation between the people and the Satoyama landscape, exploring and learning the issues of each landscape and values for the local people are the first steps for restoring social-ecological systems.