"For many Japanese, satoyama represents the ideal of coexistence between humans and nature. It is commonly described as secondary woodlands and grasslands adjunct to small villages, and is the scene of rich biological diversity.
"The first written reference to satoyama dates back to 1759. Forester Hyoemon Terauchi recorded the livelihoods of rural mountain woodland communities and used the term satoyama to describe the human managed landscapes surrounding those communities.
"The idea of satoyama — along with the views about nature, lifestyles, cultural values, traditional knowledge and resource management practices it embodies — would have faded into the annals of history were it not for the efforts of another forester ecologist, Tsunahide Shidei, who reintroduced this concept in the 1960s."
The area shown in the video is called Kanakura and is located in Wajima City, on Noto Peninsula in Ishikawa Prefecture. It's on the other side of Honshu from us, on the Sea of Japan. I wish our area was still so undeveloped.
