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April 22, 2000 Trip du Jour–Central Honshu, Chiba Prefecture, Japan“This was just another poignant reminder that traditional tourism seeks to attract not by appreciating what Nature has already endowed, but by tearing Nature down . . . ”
As we entered the early morning morass of concrete and expressway commuter congestion, we were treated to a natural spectacle of great rarity and unspeakable beauty: snow-covered Mt. Fuji looming directly over the skyline of Tokyo, magically appearing from behind the permanent curtain of smog that had been blasted away by the sudden front of the night before. Before the advent of pollution, this view was commonplace. Virtually every town within 150 miles north of Tokyo has a street or prominence named "Fujimi"–view of Fuji–indicating that the air in the capital was once clean enough and clear enough to see this dominating landmark even though it lies well behind Tokyo when viewed from the north. Economic and technical progress in the form of atmospheric pollution has made this incredible, free, low-tech sight available to anyone with the ability to open their eyes–Tokyo framed by the most stunning natural landmark in Japan–a precious rarity. To see Mt. Fuji from the southern side of Tokyo is easy enough, but the grandeur of the immaculate cone standing guard over the city, with a full moon lingering in the morning sky, reminded us as we buzzed along the manmade highway in our manmade vehicle that Nature is not a resource–it is The Source. And of course, this moment was colored with a few mild oaths about having left the camera back in Utsunomiya. From the churning morning guts of Tokyo’s 3, 6 and 10-mile traffic jams, we emerged onto the expressway to Chiba. Where this once-rural prefecture abuts the Tokyo city limits, it is distinguishable from its paved-over neighbor only by a roadsign: the juggernaut of Japan’s postwar economic miracle, like the Midas touch, turns everything it encounters into asphalt, rebars and auto emissions. When you cross from Tokyo into Chiba the license plates change, but the smog remains the same. As you pass east towards the coast, there is a fitting symbol of Japan’s–and the world’s–traditional approach to tourism: Cinderella’s Castle, the home of Mickey Mouse, the Kingdom of Dreams and Magic. Fermata, of course, sees it differently: castle of fake history, home of the synthetic, kingdom of the unnatural. We drove right on by. This same stretch includes another typical approach to tourism, the Zaos artificial ski resort. A manmade cliff leaping out of thin air, this architectural miscarriage is a totally enclosed, refrigerated ski run, smack in the middle of the Tokyo Bay area where it snows about as often as it does in Houston, Texas. Never mind that the Bay itself offers tremendous nature-oriented tourist activities that can be pursued year-round–if you can’t get to the snowy mountain, we’ll bring the snowy mountain to you. This was just another poignant reminder that traditional tourism seeks to attract not by appreciating what Nature has already endowed, but by tearing Nature down (in this case, filling in Tokyo Bay) and rearing unnatural feats of engineering instead. Yet one bright spot amid the artificial gloom smiled at us as we sped by, Yatsu-higata mud flats, a tiny corner of Tokyo Bay surrounded by concrete that environmental groups have preserved and that is the premier shorebird site for the metropolitan area.
Urban sprawl is not a long enough phrase to describe what you have to pass through before the green begins to break through and the uniform grays and browns give way to groves of bamboo, botan cherries in the final stages of bloom, and the reflection of water in flooded paddies, some of which are already dotted with the green seedlings that will mature into this year’s rice crop. We exited the expressway at the town of Sanbu*, and were greeted by a good indicator that the area was nature-conscious and that it welcomed nature tourists: a sign directing us to the insectivorous plant habitat. Before we made it there, we were diverted by the birding possibilities of a paddy that had just been flooded and ploughed. Little Ringed Plover and Great Egret were feeding in the freshly turned mud, taking advantage of the worm and frog harvest that the farmers had obviously unearthed just for them. A Dusky Thrush sat up in the drier mud, artfully selecting from an apparently delicious morning buffet. One section of this beach area, heavily used by surfers, fishermen, picnickers and clamdiggers–is a perfect example of a local community that doesn’t value all its local natural resources. The narrow trail leading from the beach back into a stand of stunted pines was littered with toilet paper and human offal. Apparently the community couldn’t–or more likely, wouldn’t–fund a portable toilet. The area deeper into the trees also spoke volumes about this community’s conservation ethic: abandoned cars, dumped appliances, and family garbage of every possible variety and hue. What might have been a pleasant, peaceful nature trail that brought in revenue for the town and added aesthetic value to the people who already used the beach area was an ad hoc landfill and open-air toilet.
Yet there were Oriental Greenfinches, Common Bush Warblers, swallows migrating north along the coast, Gray Heron, Little and Great Egrets, and numerous other easily seen birds all in a ten-minute radius–coastal woodlands, rice paddies, coastal breaks, jetties, dunes and open beach habitat separated by what was hardly more than a stone’s throw with a good arm. Although parts of the area are heavily developed in the form of tennis courts, swimming pools and other artificial attractions, had anyone in Hasunuma ever tried to determine the revenue that nature watchers would add? Had anyone ever considered whether the current users of this resource could be encouraged to spend more money in the community by upgrading and protecting the area’s natural resources? Fermata guesses not–people conserve what they value, and they value what they conserve. Next we headed north to the city of Choshi*, a major fishing port at the mouth of the Tonegawa River*. This giant fishery is a haven for many types of seabirds. We saw Glaucous, Slaty-backed, Common Black-headed, Black-tailed, and Glaucous-winged gulls, as well as Pelagic and Temminck’s cormorants and Spot-billed Ducks. Most of these were lined up on the concrete embankments of the harbor like models on a runway, conveniently posed for the spotting scope mounted on our car window.
Japanese and American small town communities face many of the same dire problems, problems so severe that, unless addressed, will literally wipe these locales off the face of the map. Urbanization in Japan has siphoned off the young, and along with the youth the tax base as well. Japan has the grayest population in the world, bar none. Traditional forms of small town industry, that is to say rice farming, have become economically untenable. Federally sponsored plans to reduce the high cost of cultivation by merging small plots into larger mega-farms are only tiny bandages on a slashed throat. At the same time, the swollen urban populations of Tokyo, Yokohama and Osaka have created a spending throng of city dwellers who want to escape the grime, the smog, the traffic, and the ugly tones of gray, off-gray, brown and black. Places such as the bird center in Tajiri, Miyagi Prefecture, and the Dragonfly Habitat and Museum* in Nakamura City, Kochi Prefecture, have experienced a massive influx of tourists who are willing to pay to see untamed nature doing its thing. Nakamura’s nature center offers a scientific display of every dragonfly species in Japan, a self-guided tour and quiz, and knowledgeable, helpful staff to answer questions and help with the quiz. Outside the center is a dragonfly habitat where visitors can watch these spectacular insects in the wild. The marsh around which the nature center in Tajiri revolves has recorded over 200 bird species and is a biologically diverse region. It’s also packed with urbanites from nearby Sendai, nature lovers casual and avid who have money to spend and the time to invest. We reached our home base four hours later, tired from the full day’s drive but energized and excited about the possibilities for bringing local communities into contact with their natural resources and teaching them how to use, value, and conserve those resources. The lesson was local, but here on the far eastern coast of Japan, we realized once again that the lesson–like Nature–was global, too. Birding, Nature and Sanctuary Sites in JapanWild Bird Society of Japan Japanese Bird Sanctuaries Syunkunitai Sanctuary, Hokkaido Tsurui-Ito Sanctuary, Hokkaido Tokyo Port Wild Bird Park Fukushima City Kotori no Mori, Fukushima Yokohama Nature Sanctuary, Yokohama
Kaga City Komo-ike Sanctuary, Ishikawa Prefecture Himeji City Sanctuary, Hyoko Prefecture Aburayama Nature Sanctuary, Fukuoka Prefecture
Trip du Jour, April 22, 2000
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