Japan’s Sustainable Forest Village: Nishiawakura
So we want to integrate the forest more into people's lives. You know, doing redneck stuff. If that helps, we'll do that. Hello, world.
Over the years, I visited many Japanese cities, towns, and villages. Places with millions of people to places with a few hundred. This time, we're heading out to this tiny village, up in the northern mountains of Okayama Prefecture. Its name is Nishiawakura. It has just over 1300 people, and is surrounded by thousands of hectares of manmade forests and picturesque mountainsides.
And if you're thinking it's like the last small town I covered, Kofu, I think you'll find they’re very different places. You see, in the past decade or so, Nishiawakura has become a famous and award winning village within the sustainable development community in Japan. By the way, Japanese governments love the acronym SDG, which stands for “Sustainable Development Goals” Nishiawakura’s sustainable efforts and openness to entrepreneurs has attracted over 200 people from outside the village to immigrate. That's roughly 20% of the village population. If their efforts work, and so far they seem to be, then the economic framework built in Nishiawakura may be applied to a variety of other places in Japan that face similar problems, Such as depopulation, job decline and environmental degradation.
To see what was going on, I had Bobby head out to Nishiawakura several times over half a year to film the villagers and their projects. In this video, we'll go over how the village since 2008, has carried out an ambitious multi-generation initiative called “The 100 Year Vision of the Forest” With the aim of utilizing its natural resources to revitalize its economy and become a self-sustaining village. To help paint a clearer picture of what Nishiawakura is like and why so many outsiders are moving into the village every year. We'll meet a variety of villagers; from foresters, educators, entrepreneurs, and leaders of the community. But first, let's orient ourselves a bit.
Nishiawakura is up here. On the border between the prefectures of Okayama and Tottori And depending on your definition of a city, the closest such places are Tottori, Tsuyama, or Himeji. All about a 50 minute car ride away. Now, if you're like Bobby and visiting from Okayama city, the quickest route is to take the Super Inaba From Okayama station to Ohara station And have a friend pick you up, because otherwise it's an hour long walk to Nishiawakura. But there is a cheaper local train line that brings you to the heart of the village.
However, it takes over two hours from Okayama station. On the plus side, it can be nice to have an entire train car to yourself. What do you think, Bobby? Indeed. And as Greg mentions, the Super Inaba is really convenient. But the local train route definitely makes you feel like you're going somewhere remote. It's not for everyone, but taking the longer route every once in a while can help build a sense of adventure, so I recommend it if you're OK on time.
Now, once I arrived at Nishiawakura station, it was just a two minute walk to my base of operations. A bed and breakfast called Nokishita Toshokan run by my friend, Hiromi Charles. They provide delicious homemade meals as well as a relaxing atmosphere for you to truly kick back during your time in the village. And of course, I interviewed Hiromi about her important role in the village, as well as her decision to move here from London.
But we'll cover that a bit later. First, we got to go into the manmade forests of Nishiawakura because to truly wrap one's head around the 100 year forest initiative and what all these entrepreneurs are doing, it's helpful to actually see what's going on in these giant tree plantations. Now, with my poor sense of direction, I would have gotten lost within the first ten minutes of being in the forest.
So I was very fortunate to have Murooka-san, our friendly neighborhood forester to guide me through the day's forest path. And he was right. I had no clue. You see, he wasn't just introducing me to the forest. Murooka-san was at work, marking a path for a future logging road that foresters will use to transport the felled trees back into town. It's not something that most people, including myself, think about, but hauling big trees out of a hilly forest is not an easy task.
So creating safe and efficient logging roads is essential for the forestry industry. Murooka-san and the forestry startup he works for called Hyakumori, uses data collected from the air via via the Geographic Information System or GIS, which uses aircrafts with lasers attached to them to accurately measure the dimensions of the forest. They use this lidar data, combined with drone footage, to get relatively accurate measurements of tree size, topography, and a sense of overall scale.
Now, when it comes to evaluating the quality of trees, generally speaking, the taller and straighter the tree trunk, the better. You see the wood near the top of the tree isn't really usable for architecture or carpentry because it's so small. That's why long, straight and wide tree trunks are so valuable. But also depending on where the trees are planted and how well they were taken care of, the trees can vary quite a bit in size and shape, even though they're the same variety and roughly the same age.
Now, to avoid disputes among landowners, after the trees are cut, the foresters label each tree to identify whose land it came from. Because, as you just saw, some owners spend the time and money to send the forest and take care of their trees while others don't. And as you can imagine, the owners who take care of the trees will produce higher value lumber.
Therefore, they earn more money when the wood is sold. Currently, the village has signed contracts with over 650 landowners, covering 2500 hectares of forest. So that's quite the logistical hurdle, as some landowners don't live in the village and some others have passed away. And tracking down their family members can be difficult. And if you're wondering why a landowner would ever want the village to manage their forest to begin with, just think about how much time and effort is required to tend to a forest. Through the 100 year initiative the village uses government funding to pay for the thinning operations, meaning that landowners don't have to pay for the tending but still earn money from the trees that are cut down.
So it's quite a convenient arrangement, especially for those who aren't particularly interested in foresting or don't have time to take care of their forests. So after our little trek in the woods Murooka-san drove us back to his workplace, a forestry startup company called Hyakumori, I got to meet their CEO, Tabata-san, and he kindly explained to me the ins and outs of the forestry business within Nishiawakura. So I think it's really rooted in how Nishiawakura started the 100 year forest initiative. So Nishiawakura was supposed to be merged into a big city. “Big city” right? “Big city” yeah. Mimasaka city.
But Nishiawakura decided they wanted to stay independent. So they had to find a way to make the village sustainable. So they wanted to, you know, create some kind of value within the village. So, you know, the need to create something is really, I think, rooted in Nishiawakura. So as Tabata-san mentioned, in 2008, Nishiawakura was quite close to merging with the nearby city of Mimasaka, but in order to increase their odds of survival as an independent village, they brought in consultants hired by the national government to assess what economic measures they could take to help revitalize the village.
This is where a man named Maki-san, a consultant at the time, recommended Nishiawakura to try to utilize its surrounding forest to establish a circular economy. The village then used government grant money to build the necessary infrastructure, such as a sawmill, a lumber yard, and businesses to manage their forests. The thing is, we want to create as much value within the village as possible. So if you get closer to the final product, there's more value added. Right? So it creates more employment within the village. So if we sell just timber, that's the end of the supply chain, right? But if you include a sawmill, you get like, you know, ten people working the sawmill.
And then if you get the timber from the sawmill and then put it into these floors, there's another ten people working for that. So, you know, getting closer to the final product is really important. And it's not just forestry or lumber related jobs that have contributed to the economy in the village.
As of 2008, over 50 new businesses have sprung up within Nishiawakura. All started and owned by residents specializing in various fields. We wanted to visit them all, but that would have been a logistical nightmare So we decided on visiting a select few.
Including one of the village's oldest startups, A0. To put it simply, A0 is a multidisciplinary consulting company that's involved with farming, dining, carpentry and a variety of other services. And we got to interview one of the core members, Nishioka-san.
He is one of many ambitious outsiders who moved to Nishiawakura to start a new life with his young family. We'll come back to the A0 group in a bit to cover some of their other innovative businesses. But first let's try to connect the dots with what Tabata-san and Nishioka-san have said.
So despite the abundance of cypress and cedar trees in the village, there is a limit to how many can be cut and managed within a certain time period. This could be due to landowner disputes, environmental concerns or even funding issues. They can't just chop down as many trees as they want and expect to make a profit. Therefore, it's vital for the village to produce and sell the highest value wood products such as furniture or architecture, to get a high return on investment, while also considering the environmental effects on the village. Now, something we haven't addressed yet is how much of the landscape in Nishiawakura and much of Japan, became so packed with manmade forests, and here we have Tabata-san to give us a quick history lesson.
In Japan, most of the cedar and cypress trees and most other forests were cut down during World War II, and many houses were burnt down. So there was a national initiative to grow trees, most of them to be used in houses. You know, during that time. Cedar and cypress trees were very valuable.
So if you cut down like five trees, you could get the money to go to college or get a car. Five trees? Yeah. You know, it was that valuable to have some trees. So people, you know, really wanted to plant trees for their grandson, grandkids, It turns out, it takes like 60 or 70 years to grow a tree. So during those 60-70 years, many things changed. One of them was that, trees started being imported from Canada and Russia and many other places.
So, you know, the value went down and also people stopped making houses with, you know, timber. Oh, okay. Yeah. You know, it's mostly concrete and things like that.
So the value of, timber really went down 1/20 of what it used to be. It costs pretty much $25,000 to plant trees in one hectare and then grow them to be 60 years old. And the same amount of, trees that would be grown would be sold for about $10,000. So, you know, it's planting and then also protecting the trees from animals. And then you also have to weed the area.
So that the trees grow larger and then you have to do thinning activities, and also pruning of the branches to make sure that they make good timber. Yeah. So in Japan we plant about 3,000 saplings per hectare. And then we have to thin them to be about 500 or 700 per hectare. So you have to thin them a lot. Now, in a previous video I made about trees in Japan, I briefly talked about forest thinning and its environmental effects.
To recap, thinning is the selective removal of trees to improve the overall health and growth of a forest. By reducing overcrowding, the remaining trees have better access to sunlight, water, and nutrients, promoting stronger, more resilient growth. This also has a positive effect on biodiversity and in theory can provide more CO2 absorption in the long run.
But thinning is expensive and many landowners don't want to pay for it. There is a number of reasons for this. One is that the trees being cut down may not be high value lumber. i.e., long, straight, and wide trees. Well, you may ask, “Why not just sell the wood as woodchips for fuel?” Unfortunately, the market price of woodchips is so low, mostly due to cheaply imported wood, that the cost of transporting the wood outweighs the revenue brought in by the woodchips. And that begs the question why is transporting the wood so expensive? Well, logging in forestry requires trained experts to safely and precisely cut down sections of the forest, as we saw earlier with Murooka-san, for efficient thinning operations, logging roads have to be constructed, which requires money.
Then there's the use of big specialized machinery that comes with operation fuel and maintenance costs. So when Tabata-san says that it takes about $25,000 to grow one hectare of forest, but they only make 10,000 back, you can start to see why. In Japan, thinning forests generally doesn't make economic sense. An unofficial estimate of 30-40% of felled trees are left in the forest to rot, due to high transportation costs.
There's very little published data on this, but it's kind of an open secret among landowners, foresters and government officials. The point is, in many parts of the country, there is a lot of unutilized lumber that's just left to rot in the forest after thinning, which means more CO2 gets released back into the atmosphere. So this poses both economic and environmental challenges.
Maintaining forests, require, you know, a lot of things. One of them is to make sure that the wood is really used in an ecological way. Using timber instead of fossil fuel is probably useful. So a lot of people agree that, you know, it's a good thing Cutting down trees itself costs some carbon footprint. But if you really use it for like these kind of floors and houses, you could keep the carbon there, within those kind of structures. And when it comes to clearcutting, which is the harvesting of large sections of forest, typically only about 20% of felled trees are sold as high quality lumber, with about 50% being sold for use as plywood.
The remaining 30% of low quality wood has little to no commercial value. So in Nishiawakura, to make the most of its natural resources, the low quality wood is cut into wood chips and used as biomass to heat the elementary school, junior high school, kindergarten, senior care facilities, as well as the village office, slash library, slash recreation center, which was recently rebuilt and has a centralized HVAC system that makes use of large biomass boilers. About 1,000 tons of wood waste is utilized per year and provides about 40% of the heating needs for all public buildings. That means almost half of the public infrastructure is heated through locally supplied energy resources. Eventually, the village wants to no longer depend on any imported fossil fuels, which during times of war, tariffs and trade disagreements can bring small towns and cities to their knees. On a side note, the cooling system at the village hall is also really neat.
You see, there's an underground well with naturally cold running water, so they use a solar powered ventilation system to push the cooler underground air up toward the building through these tiny circular air ducts installed throughout the floors. Anyway, while we're on the topic of the village hall Bobby got to interview the village mayor. Mayor Aoki. The mayor's belief in self-sufficiency for both energy and food really resonated with me. However, one snag here is that the biomass boilers that provide much of the heating energy for Nishiawakura are not made in the village or even in Japan. They're made in Italy, so they're not only expensive due to exchange rates, shipping costs and tariffs, but maintenance can also be pricey and quite frankly, a pain to deal with.
As you can see, the mayor is quite outspoken and we'll get to hear more from him later. So far, we've met foresters and those involved with setting up the new economic infrastructure of Nishiawakura. But let's hear from someone within the architectural world who helps increase the economic value of the local lumber. Meet, Naoko-san, co-founder of one of Nishiawakura’s most successful architectural firms called Youbi.
Something I wanted to ask Naoko-san was was why carpentry and architecture industries hadn't sprung up in Nishiawakura earlier, even though the area had good weather and plenty of cypress and cedar trees to use as the raw materials. I think many of us who live in Japan share the experience of asking why something is done a certain way and being given the response, “Because that's the way it is, or always has been” which is a great belief when you don't want people to rock the boat, but when the ship is sinking, like in the case of many struggling villages, such a traditional mindset might hinder a community's ability to face modern challenges. So we'll hear once again from the mayor about his thoughts on the importance of adaptability for survival. This flexibility that the mayor describes and the village’s support of new ventures really makes Nishiawakura an entrepreneur’s ideal village Now so far we’ve focused a lot about the forestry industry because it's the biggest part of Nishiawakura's economy and also because it's so complex from an environmental and economic standpoint, I honestly felt like I was writing a college thesis or researching for this video, but I want to assure you that there's quite a bit of economic diversity within the village, such as a cage free chicken farmer slash consultant slash designer named Hada-san.
Hada-san’s chickens arrived a few weeks after my visit, but they seem to be doing quite well, so I wish him and his team continued success. At A0, the multifaceted consulting firm, they also sell animal products such as venison and farm raised eels. But with environmental, community and economic sustainability in the forefront of their business model. So I think it's about time to head back to Nokishita Toshokan, the bed and breakfast I stayed at and hear a bit from my friend Hiromi.
So I live here in Nishiawakura, because this is where my father is from. I sort of inherited this house then because my grandma, when she was alive and she loved reading, she loved books. And so from the mid 1960s, for 10 years she opened up this room to local kids when we didn't have a public library in the village, since she paid for my education abroad, basically. And, I wanted to do something to remember her and to show my gratitude. Another popular place to stay in Nishiawakura is an onsen slash cafe slash guesthouse called Motoyu Many locals come here to bathe in the revitalizing hot spring waters. After a long day's work and out-of-town visitors staying overnight can enjoy unique experiences like a DIY sauna that looks like a giant egg.
Right outside the entrance of the building, There's an impressive wood furnace out back that helps heat up the onsen temperatures just right. And you guessed it, they use wood from the surrounding forest. They also serve locally produced meat like venison or boar, which is quite delicious And fun fact the owner of Motoyu is a former competitive wrestler and also owns one of the most successful wrestling uniform companies in Japan.
So again, many hats, lots of ambitions. But let’s say you don't want to work in forestry, agriculture, or hospitality industries. What other options are there for people who want to live in the village? I asked Naoko-san, who’s involved with with various entrepreneurs and town initiatives, her thoughts. I didn't get to visit the elementary or middle school, but I was fortunate enough to visit the Montessori school run by another out-of-town resident. Mayuko-san. Our family moved to the village of Nishiawakura seven years ago, and right now I offer a Montessori classroom environment for children from two and a half years old, up to six years old.
I offer classes so that they can come just once a week to experience that environment. Those people who choose to move to Nishiawakura, they are interested in entrepreneurship. They also want their children to choose their life their career and Montessori in a way, we let them practice making their own choices. And behind the village hall, there's an after school recreation center called Pocket that just opened last year.
It acts as a type of third space for young students to visit, learn and have fun. And we got a VIP tour from their charming hosts There's also a kitchen at Pocket where kids can decide on recipes and cook for themselves, too These two chefs made us some candied mandarin oranges that would melt your heart and break your teeth. It was very generous of Sarina and her little helper to guide us through Pocket. I wish every village had such a cool rec center for kids. Now it was great to catch a glimpse of Montessori and Pocket, but I still wanted to get a teenager's perspective on the village's education and overall qualities. And that's where my young friend Hiro comes in.
I'm currently a third year student in high school. I go to school by train. It takes about an hour and a half, and then I bike to school for like 15 minutes.
Most of the high school students who grew up in Nishiawakura, they don't live here because the nearest high school will be in Tsuyama. It's about like, one hour away by car. Because if you go to Tottori like me, we have a train so I can come back every day. But in Tsuyama, we don't have, like a good train to get on. So they have to stay in a dormitory and they don't come back here that often.
So the problem now of Nishiawakura is the young generation, they go out of this village before they understand the beauty of the village. What's unique about the village. So they won't come back when they get older. They just go to, you know, big cities like Tokyo. Because I don't meet any of my friends, like my friends in junior high school, or like primary school now. And now I’m a high school student so I understand more how this revitalization thing that Nishiawakura is trying to do.
So I try to, you know, go to events. I, exhibited my artwork in this forest festival held in Nishiawakura. So I try to engage more in the village. But you can't do that when you live in Tsuyama. So it's hard to, you know, notice small things in the village.
So even though the village is full of friendly people surrounded by beautiful nature and hosts a number of fun events, a core problem is that teenagers are often missing from the equation due to a lack of transportation and education options. This will be a big challenge for the village community to try and solve, but as long as new people come in and offer new solutions, there's always hope. And this is where we'll introduce another key resource that Nishiawakura utilizes as well, the Chiiki Okoshi Kyoryokutai In English, the organization roughly translates to local revitalization support or support team, and nearly 1,100 villages, towns, and cities take part in the program, which is funded by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications.
Nishiawakura is considered one of the most desirable and highly rated places to work as a Kyoryokutai member. Currently, there are over 50 Kyoryokutai members working in the village for various businesses, some even starting their own. To get a better idea of what they do and how it's going, Bobby interviewed two Kyoryokutai members who work at Hyakumori. Well, like, the main objective of my rural promotion position is to bring more people to the forest. Right now we're focusing mainly on like activities that people are pretty familiar with, like trail running, mountain biking and hiking and walking.
I want to kind of explore more, but for example, we just had like a forest festival. And there I, invited my dance friend from Osaka and she did a dance improvization workshop, kind of like trying to diversify the type of activities that people can enjoy while out in the forest. Yeah. So, you know when people come to Nishiawakura, they usually go to the onsen, but there's not much else to do. So we want to, you know, provide them with some kind of activity to do within the village. I saw the poster at the library for laser tag.
Yeah. And it just reminded me of like, a redneck family in America. I mean, like, you know, doing fun stuff in the forest, but we want to make sure that people actually, you know, feel that it's their forest as well.
It's kind of like secluded from other, you know, ways of life within the village right now. So we want to integrate the forest more into people's lives, you know, doing redneck stuff. If that helps, we'll do that. We visited Nishiawakura three times, and the first two times we were really just like getting feelers for the village. After the second visit, Taba-chan decided to apply for a Chiiki Okoshi like rural promotion position.
Once that got accepted, that's when we knew like there was actually a job and then the second necessity was, a place to live. So we just happened to get lucky because, Taba-chan found a house for us that was, available for rent. Yeah. Without, like, Taba-chan Like, without him being here and having local connections. I don't think, like, the move would have been that smooth. And in case you were curious, Minami and Moe are expected to be hired full time at Hyakumori after their Kyoryokutai grant period is finished.
So whether it's to Kyoryokutai or new entrepreneurs, the village is getting a much needed influx of fresh ideas and manpower. But even though incoming residents are a great thing for Nishiawakura, I couldn't help but wonder about the forecast of the village's population. If we compare data from ten years ago, the village has been shrinking at about 1.4% a year. It's way better than the national average, which is about 2.47% a year.
And this may be an irrelevant comparison, but a nearby former village called Higashiawakura decided to merge with Mimasaka city, back in 2008. Over the past ten years, Higashiawakura’s population has fallen from 1189 people to 908 people an annual loss of 2.6%. They also no longer have a kindergarten or elementary school, which makes it difficult to appeal to young families. So with all that said, I wanted to hear from inbound residents who'd already had children before moving to the village about raising kids in Nishiawakura. Before moving here the thing we were concerned the most about was whether or not our older daughter could fit in this rural, traditional Japanese school culture.
But the fact was that people were so kind and welcoming. And then what we were surprised the most was there just so many people fluent in English. So we just felt totally at home and welcome So yes. So I do get my guests who are thinking about moving to the village, and I try to be really honest about it, but I always say, well, I just share my experience about my kids growing up here. And, you know, the neighbors are really happy to see kids running around.
They don't complain, generally speaking, about the noise that they make, and they're really welcome. And then as a community as a whole, they really try to protect and they we treasure the kids. And one last person I'd like to introduce is Jonathan Silverman.
He's a ceramicist at Shelburne Craft School in Vermont in the United States. He was visiting Nishiawakura to lead some art workshops and experience, and a Noborigama firing. For those of you who've never heard of a Noborigama before, it's a type of ascending kiln. I have met people from all walks of life.
Led a workshop for children and I’m going to be leading a workshop for adults later on. And so in the short amount of time, 4 or 5 days, I really have a sense that this is, Nishiawakura is a hidden gem. It's the nature of the people that are here or who have somehow managed to emigrate here, bringing in a lot of resources, whether they lived in Tokyo or Okayama. They're bringing in some of the the new ideas about technology, about sustainability, artisan work and whatever it is.
And I think that really allows the community to thrive. Jonathan has successfully gotten funding in America, to send several artists from Vermont to do an artist residency in Nishiawakura. If the program is considered a success, then artists from Nishiawakura may go to Vermont for their residencies. Hopefully, this launches a beneficial long term relationship between the state of Vermont and Nishiawakura. One of the reasons why I enjoyed visiting Nishiawakura is that many of the people there have a sense of purpose. They're active and busy, but not so busyand frazzled to not have a coffee with you.
Or, in the case of this video, to be interviewed for a YouTube channel that they'd never heard of. I learned so much about forestry, biomass boilers, Kyoryokutai, and a whole laundry list of research topics along the way to making this video. I'm proud that we were able to document the works of these ambitious people, and I hope that people watching this video may be inspired by them.
Be ambitious, try to live a healthy life, take care of your environment, and ultimately take care of your town. Thanks for watching. See you next time. Peace. What are entrepreneurial villages like where you're from?
2025-03-11 12:27
