A new video has been produced as a result of IPSI Collaborative Activities, focusing on restoration efforts in the Urato Islands in northeastern Japan. Since 2011, the United Nations University Institute for the Advanced Study of Sustainability (UNU-IAS), which hosts the IPSI Secretariat, has been involved in activities with Tohoku University and the company e-front that aim to use the concepts of SEPLS (satoyama and satoumi in Japanese) in the islands to create opportunities for people to interact and revitalize local communities.
The Urato Islands are a group of small islands with rich satoyama and satoumi where people have been cultivating oysters and seaweed, and growing vegetables, for years. In the last few decades, the islands’ communities have been facing challenges such as a declining and ageing population, and abandoned farmland. The 2011 earthquake and tsunami badly exacerbated this situation and significantly weakened the social capital of the communities that live on the islands. This video introduces the revitalization project and how it has made an impact on the islands’ people.
From 2011 to 2015, UNU-IAS carried out an earlier project, in collaboration with Tohoku University, that aimed to revitalise satoyama and satoumi in the islands’ communities. Please see the additional videos listed below, which capture a portrait of people engaged in community recovery.
- Bouncing Back from Disaster – Working with Nature to Create a Brighter Future for the Urato Islands
- Urato, Home of Oysters (Japanese language only)
- Urato, Beautiful Islands (Japanese language only)
These projects were carried out under IPSI Collaborative Activities, using the concept of the Satoyama Initiative. The production of this video was made possible with financial contributions from the “Ink Cartridge Satogaeri Project”. For details on this project, please visit: http:// http://www.inksatogaeri.jp/
The video can be viewed by clicking the image above, or on the “video” section of the IPSI website here.