Residents struggling to revitalize depopulated areas are shocked by the Japan Policy Council’s study released last month which gave a list of towns and villages highly likely to disappear due to population decline.
The think tank’s panel of experts, headed by former internal affairs minister Hiroya Masuda, said that in 2040, 896 municipalities nationwide would see their populations of young women decline considerably, making 523 municipalities suffer from a population drop below 10,000 with high possibility of being eventually emptied. It recommended that public assistance be concentrated in major regional cities in order to prevent people from moving to metropolitan areas.
People living in rural villages, who have eagerly been taking measures to encourage young people to settle in, are worried that such reports could lead the public to think inefficient villages are unnecessary.
Megumi Nojiri, 27, of Fukuoka Prefecture moved to a wooded area along the Asemi River in Motoyamacho, Kochi Prefecture, four years ago. She says she started living there under the government’s three-year program for young people in metropolitan areas to live in rural villages and help revitalize the area, because she wanted to think seriously about her way of life. After completing the program, Nojiri continued to live in Motoyamacho, engaging in various part-time jobs such as a cram school teacher and a forestry worker.
Together with residents of six villages along the Asemi River, Nojiri is currently conducting a number of activities, including farmers’ markets and buckwheat soba noodle and pizza making classes, in an accommodation facility made by refurbishing a closed school building.
Megumi Nojiri (center) discusses marketing strategy for perilla-flavored ice cream, the local specialty, with residents of Motoyamacho, Kochi Prefecture.
“People in urban areas will not be able to live if they abandon rural villages rich in natural resources such as water and forests,” says Nojiri, who grew up in an urban residential area. “Those who moved in are actively coming up with interesting ideas.”
Chiyuki Onishi, a Motoyamacho municipal government official in charge of building communities, highly evaluates the changes brought about by young people who moved in to the area, saying they are energizing rural villages by creating a variety of activities in which people from different generations can take part.
Starting in fiscal 2012, the Kochi prefectural government has set up community activity centers in various areas and actively recruited people from other prefectures to support activities in rural communities. Thanks to such efforts, 1,000 people or 511 families moved to Kochi during the three years until fiscal 2013, more than double the number who moved in before that period. Kazuhiko Maeda, a prefectural government official in charge of revitalizing mountainous areas, says more people started living in regional areas after the March 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake.
The Japan Policy Council’s list of municipalities which are highly likely to disappear includes those in Kochi Prefecture, but Maeda says he hopes the estimates will not lead to discussions that such municipalities are unnecessary just because their population is predicted to decline. When dealing with depopulated areas, the government should take into account the post-disaster trend of people turning to the countryside, Maeda adds.
In response to such concerns, an official at the Japan Policy Council’s secretariat said the council has been cautious enough about using the word “disappear,” considering the harshness of the expression. But the official said it is necessary for Japan to face the unavoidable problem of population decrease, adding the council hopes municipalities will make use of the predictions when compiling policy measures.
Naoyoshi Funaki, head of the village of Kosuge, Yamanashi Prefecture and chairman of an association of municipalities located around river sources, stresses the need to raise voices on the priceless value of the satoyama countryside before debates heat up over concentrating budget spending more in urban areas. Funaki points out that it is also important for rural municipalities to speak up, including presenting successful cases of community revitalization.
(June 24, 2014)