THE SUN RISES
OVER A NEW LAND OF ECOVILLAGES
Hildur Jackson, from Denmark, reports on the growing ecovillage movement
in Japan and records her impressions of this fascinating country.
T
he newest ecovillage
network, NEN (Nippon
Ecovillage Network),
has just been created in Japan,
and is about to start building
its first ecovillage in Shiga
District, just outside of Kyoto.
It will be situated on 12 hectares
(30 acres) of land near lake
Biwa, the biggest lake in Japan.
Roughly 250 houses are planned
and eight young designers of
various educational backgrounds
(architects, farmers, landscape
designers, biologists) have been
hired by the real estate deve-
lopers group, Akimura, to do the
design and be the core residents
of the ecovillage.
In quite the opposite to all
other countries we know of, the
ecovillage movement in Japan
started from the top down – a
developer in co-operation with
local politicians initiated and
planned the first ecovillage. Will
26 Permaculture Magazine
Above: it work this way? Will Japan once
A traditional again surprise the world by taking
village outside a good idea and carrying it out
Hiroshima. quickly and professionally, much
faster than in other countries?
Only time will tell. But they are
enthusiastic and eager to be part
of the international network.
JAPAN TODAY
Arriving in Tokyo on 4th
November after 11 hours in
a plane from Denmark, I was
filled with anticipation and fear.
This is the country where the
first nuclear bomb was dropped.
This is also, however, the place
Below: of a post World War II economic
Hildur Jackson. miracle. After an unprecedented
growth in population, however,
they are now in the twelfth
year of economic stagnation.
My husband, Ross Jackson,
and I were invited to be part
of inaugurating the Japanese
network.
No. 36
Happily, I let go of my
fears and experienced a Japan,
where the old, highly evolved
culture is still cherished and
felt throughout. We met
modest, friendly, quiet, polite
people everywhere and there
was no noise in the streets at
night in Kyoto with its two
million considerate inhabitants.
I was struck by the focus on
cleanliness, from taxi seats
covered with white lace, white
gloves for the steering wheel,
constant hot towels packed in
plastic to wash our hands, free
Kleenex distributed at train
stations, to the washing of floors
in trains after each trip. The
food was exquisitely served in a
variety of small bowls and plates
on trays of colored lacquer and,
of course, eaten with chopsticks.
Every meal seemed to include
raw fish. Frequent rain showers
made umbrellas an essential part
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of the daily outfit, and umbrella
stands are found in front of all
hotels, stores and houses.
From Tokyo, we immediately
took the Shinkansen, a bullet
train, to Kyoto, 400km (250
miles) south. The electronic
notice above the door indicated
a speed of up to 300km (186
miles) an hour. The landscape
is covered with concrete houses
and overhead power lines, but
when it becomes a little more
rural you see small rice fields
and vegetable gardens and many
traditional houses with glazed
tile roofs, with the corners often
decorated with tile dragons.
Traditional houses typically have
parchment sliding doors, rice
mats on the floor, low tables
and offer a traditional Japanese
lifestyle.
Japanese gardens are found
everywhere with trees trimmed
to be decorative and not
for shade. I could not help
constantly recalling the line
from somewhere, “It is nature
still, but nature methodized.”
Japan is self-sufficient in rice
but imports 70% of its food
for the 130 million inhabitants.
With many of the big companies
moving to mainland China, the
Japanese are vulnerable and
they are on the lookout for new
models and ideas. As economist
and social innovator, Bernard
Lietaer1 put it, “They have hit
the wall economically, just some
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years before Europe and the
USA. Now they are looking for
new models.”
AKIMURA-SAN
& THE YOUNG GROUP
One evening we were taken to a
formal dinner given by Akimura-
san, a major real estate developer
and initiator of the first Japanese
ecovillage, Kobunaki, about to
be started this year. His son,
Takashi, is leader of the young
group of eight. On the way we
had an hour’s meeting with the
chief planners of the 2005 World
Expo to be held in Aichi, Japan
with sustainable communities as
one of the three main themes.
The restaurant is new but
looks very traditional and
beautiful. It is designed by one
of the ‘young people’, a slim,
tall Japanese woman architect,
Sonoe Koshimuzu.
I was discreetly asked by
Akimura-san to sit with the
‘young group’ of potential
ecovillagers during dinner at a
side table, while Ross and Bernard
were seated in a big square in the
center of the room with the host
and local dignitaries. I happily
proposed a round introducing
ourselves, our backgrounds
and our dreams and passions.
We had a great time sharing,
laughing and dreaming together.
The round revealed that the
team covers all the relevant
aspects of ecovillage design,
Above: except for group facilitation and
The young conflict resolution. They had
group with been carefully chosen from five
Hildur. thousand university graduates,
and six out of eight are women!
How the rest of the residents of
the first ecovillage will be found
is not yet resolved.
The group are creating a
new model for ecovillages not
seen before, and they will have
to invent their way as they go.
Akimura as landowner, initiator,
father and funder is a real strength,
but he comes from a traditional
Above: property developer’s background
Terraced and that could be the Achilles
farming. heel. How do you develop real
democracy and equality under
Below: such circumstances?
Akimura-san
and his son, HITTING THE WALL
Takashi Bernard Lietaer explains as we
Akimura. sit down in the evening in the
hotel lobby, “Japan is the first of
the major economies to hit the
wall of structural development.
The standard explanation of the
Japanese situation is manage-
ment and lack of reforms. But
things are structural when they
do not improve with business as
usual. So what are the structural
problems?
“Firstly, the age wave (many
old people) will not go away.
Secondly, jobless growth will not
go away and new technologies
will just make it worse. Thirdly,
the environmental crises
will not go away and neither
will monetary instability. 87
countries have gone through a
major monetary crisis over the
past 25 years. Japan has all these
problems. So does the US and
Europe. It is a world problem.
No. 36 Permaculture Magazine 27

Chronologically, they were first
hit in 1990. Europe started in
1995 and the US in 2001.
“In Europe we still believe it is
not structural and that things will
improve, but the Industrial Age is
dying. Japan is waking up saying:
this is a structural problem. We
need to invent new ways of
organizing society. This is
now accepted in Japan. But
there is not yet consensus
on the new development
mode. So everybody is
trying new models.”
Bernard expects that in
five years Europe will have
the same realization that we
need to find new solutions
to structural problems and
find new definitions of
what development is. “The
Japanese are more open
to radical new ideas like
the ecovillage model and
complementary currencies
because they have tried all
the conventional solutions in
the early 1990s and they have
not worked. The Japanese came
to me, as they did to you, on
their own initiative, asking for
a Japanese version of both my
books. I did not even have an
agent. They are organizing a
symposia on complementary
currencies. The most powerful
planning organization in Japan
– the Meti (government and
business) – wants to experiment
with complementary currencies.
Japan has the greatest number of
such systems in the world (4,000
systems in all have been created
in 20 years). What we see now
are the first simple models, which
will look primitive in 10 years’
time just like the Wright brothers’
first attempt at flying. Later they
will be more refined.”
28 Permaculture Magazine
HIROSHIMA’S ECOVILLAGE
STRATEGY – PEACE WORK OF
THE FUTURE
400km (250 miles) further
south, we arrived by Shinkansen
in Hiroshima and were taken
immediately to a brainstorming
meeting with city officials, a local
think tank, the peace movement
and big business. They wanted to
hear our ideas on how to promote
peace. Everything in the city is
new – naturally! They want to
learn about ecovillages with the
Above: idea of making ecovillages their
Meeting at new peace strategy.
Hiroshima Since the bomb, peace
prefecture work has been very prominent
with local city in Hiroshima. Ken Kenichi
administration, (Ken) Kawamura is behind
think-tank and this initiative and has got the
business people. city administration and the
local business community to
co-operate. He is an
impressive personality.
Born in Hiroshima,
he went into a Zen
monastery at the age of 18,
giving up a promising
professional tennis
career. After half a year of
meditating daily for nine
hours, he could feel and
hear nature and decided
to make conservation
a major purpose of his
life. He now teaches at
two universities, as well
as being on the board of
several venture capital
companies and of the
Above centre: E-Square consultancy (Ecology
Ross with Ken and Economy = E2) and NEN.
Kawamura I was deeply moved by the
and Michiyo people there. They have really
washing hands embraced the ecovillage vision
before entering
the sacred
Shinto Shrine at
Miya-jima.
Right:
Ross visiting
the site of the
new ecovillage,
Kobunaki.
No. 36
and we can share our concern
and anguish for the future.
An ecovillage world would be
much more decentralized, more
reliant on renewable energy,
and less dependent on oil and
the enormous power centers
that result from a fossil energy
world. It would thus be more
peaceful. Ken seems to know
everybody and be capable of
minor miracles.
JAPANESE HOSPITALITY
Our visit was carefully planned
with many different contacts
and a rich program. We saw the
Peace Museum with many
deeply moving photos of how it
all looked then – before and after
the atom bomb. We were then
taken to an old, beautiful Shinto
Shrine built on the waterfront
of Miya-jima island, a major
oyster area.
The next day, the leader
of the Hiroshima think-tank,
Hamamoto-san, took us into
the mountains to see traditional
villages and get a feeling of the
traditional Japan. The forests in
the mountains were glowing in
red and yellow colors. The old
villages in the mountains are just
beautiful and the people still live
from terrace farming the steep
mountain slopes. A neighbor
warned us as we approached
some old mud houses reinforced
by bamboo, “There are evil
spirits lurking in the houses”.
We heard later that there are
plans to make the whole valley
a heritage area.
Hamamoto-san invited us to
his home on the way back, an
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unusual gesture in Japan. Four
generations live in adjacent
houses linked by beautiful
vegetable gardens in the middle
of the city. It appears to be a
well functioning community. It is
just 3km (2 miles) from the
epicenter. People here ran into
the forest behind the houses to
survive when the bomb fell, we
were told.
The consensus feeling among
our many Japanese friends is
that ecovillages will take off in
Japan. They still have a deeply
grounded feeling of community,
a respect for nature and the
need for balance and harmony.
Because Japan is the only
industrialized country that still
has its traditional villages intact,
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this may make all the difference.
Many developers are ready
to start projects, we are told.
When the Japanese decide to do
something, it really happens.
So we will be watching!
1 In the late 1980s, Bernard
Lietaer helped formulate the
Gaia Trust strategy with Trust
founders, Hildur and Ross
Jackson. Together they agreed
on a strategy that would create
more space for Yin, the female
aspect (how we relate to each Above: promote a global consciousness
other and nature and organize Kiytaka that experiences the whole planet
community) and let Yang Hamamoto, as a living organism of which
(technology and economy) his mother-in- human beings are a part of the
play a supportive role. law and Ross whole. They have pioneered the
This later became the Gaia outside the Global Ecovillage Network, an
Trust’s ecovillage strategy. mini-community alliance of ecovillage projects all
Bernard has now developed for four over the world and are engaged
this perspective further in generations. in developing new paradigms
his books, The Future of which create a sustainable and
Money and The Mystery of just society.
Money. They have both been Left: Hildur edited Creating
translated into Japanese. Bamboo and Harmony – Conflict Resolution
mud buildings in Community and co-authored
Hildur and Ross Jackson founded in a remote Ecovillage Living – Restoring the
the Gaia Trust in 1987, a Danish village in the Earth and Her People with
charity whose objective is to mountains. Karen Svensson.
No. 36 Permaculture Magazine 29