BLOOM BACK BETTERの実践者
黒田 拓治（くろだ たくじ）
Practitioner of BLOOM BACK BETTER
Takuji KURODA
生まれも育ちも丹波市市島町。
2018年時点で、丹波市市島町北岡本の自治会長。
2014年８月の豪雨災害が発生する前から森林管理、そして豪雨災害発生後は「災害に強いまちづくり」の重要性を強く認識し、現在、自治会での森林作業を率いるほか、さまざまな活動に取組んでいる。
Born and raised in Ichijima-cho, Tamba City.
As of 2018, the community leader of Kita-Okamoto district of Ichijima-cho.
He has recognized the importance of forest management since before the August 2014 torrential rain, then the significance of establishing resilient communities. Currently, he is working on community-based forest management and engaged in other various activities.
Mr. Takuji KURODA has been working on forest management in Kita-okamoto District, Ichijima-cho in Tamba City.
Even before the torrential rain-triggered disaster in August 2014, he had been aware of the disaster risk due to not taking care of the forests, which encouraged him to start community-based activities as the leader of the local self-governing organization.
This interview became very indicative of the challenges that forests in Japan in general face, the definition of disaster preparedness, and an idea about "disaster-resilient community development".
What are your community's current activities all about?
We, the self-governing organization of Kita-okamoto District, assemble twice every month from October to April (fall to spring, as these are the seasons when everybody is not so busy with farming), and work on the forest in the morning. To be exact, our activities include collecting fallen or abandoned trees, cutting them into the same length, and delivering them.
As activities in the forest require tough work of carrying heavy stuff and cutting trees on a steep ground, these duties are taken care of by young members. However, there are many roles aside from actual heavy work. It can be complementing the efforts, it can be cooking and serving food to the guys in the forest, etc. Everybody is playing a role, which results in participatory forest management.
Registered members for those activities are 30, 7 to 8 of whom are regular members. We have about 10 when many can join. We do not accuse those who cannot attend, because we want everybody to prioritize their private life. All we emphasize is to have fun.
Shipping out woods after tree thinning
Planting event
Where are the woods going after being collected and cut?
They are going to be delivered to the stockyard of "Tamba-shi Ki no Eki Project (Tamba City Wood Station Project)". There is a scheme where 1 ton, in other words, worth of 2 full loads on light trucks are purchased for 6,300 yen. The money will be a fund for parties to enjoy meals and drinks. When there is no party, the fund will be a source of allowances to working members.
*The woods brought to the stockyard will be sold to consumers as fuels for wood boilers and wood stoves.
What makes forest management a "fun" initiative?
For instance, the elderly and women who belong to our community cook and serve food - using game meat including such of wild boars. They provide not only food, but a place where our community members enjoy talking and drinking with each other. I am also trying my best to provide fun opportunities like wild plants/fruits hunting.
There are many wild boars and deer in Tamba. The City is surrounded by planted forests with coniferous trees which do not bear fruits or nuts, so those wild animals cannot find food in the mountain and go hungry. They visit the residential and agricultural areas in seek of food: the food they find is crops. Game meat used to be luxurious food decades ago, but recently they are called "gai-ju (harmful animals)".
It was a drastic change of topic from "having fun" to something linked to "forest management". Is there any other reason that forests need to be managed, aside from harm by animals?
One thing is that sediment disasters are triggered by not properly managed forests.
When torrential rain hit Ichijima-cho of Tamba City in August 2014, the rainfall was severe only in a small area of the town. That rain can be said to be a natural hazard. However, the loosened ground due to excess of water in it caused trees to fall down, hitting the low flat areas along with sediments washed away from the mountains. This is a human-induced disaster. Why? Because we have not taken care of the forests that were made by planting more than 40 years ago, and even have abandoned them. This caused the disaster to be so severe.
Supposedly, the forests should be maintained regularly, every few years through trimming and thinning. You see in the forests which never underwent thinning, trees so thin like sprouts that they have to lean on each other to support their big heads. It is human's duty to let those trees stand on their own.
Therefore, our forest activities are not done by one mere maintenance work. We need to continue it, but without much hardship yet with fun.
Mr. Kuroda emphasizes the significance of forest management. What are the relations between forests and disasters?
Could you tell us the mechanism of sediment disasters that are triggered by abandoned forests?
Long-abandoned trees are very tall and have big heads, therefore easily swing. When it rains severely above those trees, the raindrops fall along the branches of them and eventually hit the same parts of the ground intensively.
The big heads disturb the sun light from reaching to the ground, so short trees and grass won't grow. Short trees and grass play an important role in making the ground stronger. If they do not grow, the ground is so exposed to impacts including big raindrops, so it easily gets scraped, making the surface of the mountains loosened. Our houses and agricultural fields are surrounded by such trees and ground.
Why are the forests abandoned?
Our parents' and grandparents' generations used to imagine decades after, when their planted trees grew and made a lot of profit. Because the price of woods after the World War II was very high due to the great demand, they thought they could make a lot of money. When my generation was little kids, we were taken to the forest and helped the adults with planting, thinning and trimming on weekends.
However, low-priced woods started to be imported to Japan from abroad, and Japan's forestry in general was not prosperous any more. The price of Japan-made woods declined, and forestry could not pay for even human cost. This caused people to stay away from the forests.
Actually, the forests we are working on are not 100% owned by our community. There are so many landlords and concerned people. Ideal is that each owner can manage their own forests, but they do not enter there as they are aged or not willing as working in the forest does not make money. We have no choice but work as the community.
Has Mr. Kuroda always been in the forestry?
No. Only after the community agreed that we would start forest management, did I start to learn a lot of things through training and lectures. The initiative called "Tamba-shi Ki no Eki Project (Tamba City Wood Station Project)" started in 2015 to promote forest management inside the City, and I started joining them after hearing that they were willing to process woods that got washed away from the disaster.
Upon joining the Project, I learned basic skills including use of chain-saws, in order to get myself prepared to enter the forests. In addition, we registered our forests under the Project so that we could start maintenance of them. This Project is operating the abovementioned stockyard and purchasing thinned woods.
What encouraged your community to start forest management?
Even before the disaster in 2014年, we had been conscious of the conditions and problems of our surrounding forests. Our initial plan was to make use of a prefectural subsidy for big-scale thinning of the forests. In order to do so, I needed to collect agreements from each of the many landlords. When they were with us and we were about to start, the disaster occurred.
Was the big-scale thinning project cancelled due to the disaster?
The project was pushed through nevertheless after the disaster. The coverage was 70 ha (20 ha owned by the community and 50 ha privately owned). Big-scale thinning starts with clearing forestry roads for work, so as to carry thinned woods out of the forest. When the roads are cleared for a certain level, the project is completed.
Later on, maintenance of the forestry roads, removing fallen trees, and remaining constructions, etc. keep going. This kind of efforts will prevent another disaster from occurring, and that is what our community works on.
Behind the need for forest management is the fact that people have not managed forests that had been planted after the World War II. According to Mr. Kuroda, the disaster in August 2014 was a combination of a natural hazard and human-induced hazard.
What was your experience of being impacted by the disaster in August 2014?
The night from August 16 to 17 in 2014, everything was covered with water as far as I could see. It all became like a huge pond. Even roads, rivers, mountain and paddy fields were all like that. I was totally shocked with that much rainfall.
What is your responsibility as the leader of a self-governing organization of the community?
When a typhoon is approaching, I should e carefully watching the route of it, to decide whether I should release the community hall or not. Since the designated evacuation center by the City Government is a bit far from our community, and it would be risky if the residents have to go beyond the river on their way, some residents choose to take shelter at the community hall. As a fact, our community hall is located in the safest place in the district.
I would like the residents to think that the community hall is not only safe but a place where they can meet their neighbors. When they visit the hall, they can meet everybody. They can talk with each other. That would facilitate "evacuation" as a comfortable means of protecting oneself.
City's designated evacuation centers may have good facilities and enough space. Instead, you will meet different people including those whom you are not familiar with. To the contrary, the community hall is not designated as an evacuation center, which means the City Government will not equip the hall with supplies. But the so-called "evacuees" can enjoy playing table tennis or drinking to have fun at the community hall. All they have to do upon visiting the hall is just bring some food and nonfood items as per their necessity.
"Making evacuation something fun" is a very interesting way of thinking. What else do you have to do when a disaster is likely to occur, aside from releasing the community hall to the residents?
I am instructed by the Prefecture to release the water in 3 ponds within our district when a typhoon is approaching. The total amount of water in those ponds is 3,000 cubic meters, so it takes 1.5 to 2 days to empty the ponds. I have to adjust the amount of water released to the river, and inspect if anything is stuck in the plug holes, as often as about 3 times a day. This is done in order to avoid flooding.
However, it will be a trouble if the typhoon takes a different route or it does not rain as predicted. We need to secure a certain amount of water for the sake of rice cropping, so I have to carefully observe the situation and make difficult decisions. It is actually bothersome, yet very important because the water flowing to the downstream (within Tamba City and to Fukuchiyama City of Kyoto Prefecture) will greatly impact those area's flood risks.
You are not just the leader of a community, but are responsible for flood risks of other areas!
Are there any disaster risk reduction measures taken in your community?
We are promoting disaster preparedness. For example, we rearranged the stage inside our community hall to turn into emergency beds, and installed other kind of beds. To tell you the truth, we are not equipped with emergency food. Long-life food is not tasty! We'd rather bring our own food upon evacuation, than get stressed with such stored food.
Meanwhile, we agreed that we should not risk our own lives in responding to disasters. Our community members are mostly elderly, and it is quite dangerous if we are to respond to floods by setting up sandbags. We choose to be fully prepared, for we will not have to respond.
Mr. Kuroda has a strong will not only about forest management but to make Tamba City a safe community as a whole. What specifically does he aim?
Please explain about making the community safe against disasters.
Tamba City, in my opinion, has the potential to become as safe against disasters as no other. Because there is no volcano. There is no active fault found beneath our land. Therefore there is no risk of tsunami. Having little risk of those predictable hazards means Tamba City is very safe.
However, the disaster in 2014 was triggered mainly due to the abandoned forests*. As long as we work on proper forest management, there is no safer place like our City.
*The relation between abandoned forests and the flooding in 2014 has not been academically proven. However, many people claim that such forests could worsen the impact of sediment disasters.
What do you want to do with visitors to Tamba?
I want to work in the forest with them, and make Tamba a safer community. I won't say that we just want their help, but would like them to take this opportunity to think back about their own safety in where they belong. Once they extend their thoughts about it, I believe they would want to raise their kids, or establish their companies, in Tamba City!
If we study about past disasters, you get to see tendencies of their occurrences. Now, seeing different phenomena and disasters in different places, I have grown a sense of danger that the Nankai Trough Megathrust Earthquake is going to happen soon. Many experts are warning about it. What is important is that we can immediately take action when we see such warning information.
I experienced the disaster in 2014 myself. Then, I started correcting information by, for example, attending lectures by disaster experts. And I decided to take action for establishing a safe community! And I believe that it is possible in Tamba. The steps I take may be little, but will lead me to a safe and comfortable place to live.
What is your message to the potential visitors to Tamba City?
The people who are working on our forests are all serious about energy issues, the environment, disaster risk reduction and community development. We are all concerned about the impact of Nankai Trough Megathrust Earthquake: it is expected to make even our City experience blackouts. With that in our minds, we are thinking about what we should do.
Currently, I want to make wood-run generators and boilers. The wood can be procured from our forests, and this kind of equipment is needed all over the world. If we can realize mass production of such equipment, it will become a huge industry in Tamba City. That will make a lot of employment opportunities! Above all, it will encourage forest management because we will need to produce firewood as fuel as well as become a reliable source of energy. This is definitely going to lead to a safe community. That is my dream now.
Maybe dreams that cannot be realized merely by a single university, single corporation, or single community, can come true through collaboration. We would like to invite visitors to Tamba, and take the opportunity of study tours to think about establishing a safe community together.
Many social issues are linked to disaster risk reduction. It must be easy to make a safe community than to ignore the disaster risk and develop a community. This is a message from us, who experienced a disaster, that the same mistake should not be repeated. And I am truly hoping that we can work together with the future visitors to Tamba City.