Satoyama landscape in Maioka Park

Maioka Park

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Satoyama landscape usually is a beautiful blend of rice fields and woods from which the farmers or villagers get their resources. The oak and beech trees are carefully nurtured and forest undergrowth cut away to help them grow better. Maioka Park is a huge park that features the traditional Japanese satoyama landscape which is what we call the traditional Japanese idea of countryside.  It is the most common landscape that combines both plants of the natural wooded areas as well as areas where farmers use part of the land for agriculture.  This park is huge it stretches from one train station to the next. I will write more about satoyama landscape when I find more information on it. It is a very important part of the Japanese countryside landscape.

Rice fields are an integral part of the satoyama landscape

In this picture  you can see men at work in the Satoyama. They are volunteers working to conserve the natural landscape and natural environment. Actually I came here with my schoolteacher and classmates last week for our social studies lesson. We were here to find out how Japanese lived in the past. I learnt how to weave straw sandals, saw a watermill and walked through the satoyama rice (tambo) landscape. Some elementary schools participate in the citizen’s conservation program and they work to harvest the rice or plant it and work in the woods planting trees or cutting down some of them as well.

Plum blossoms

 

In this picture you see a plum tree blossoming in the satoyama with something that looks like a bird’s nest above it but that might really be a kind of mistletoe. We saw hordes of birding photographers in the park taking pictures of ho-ozuki birds in the marshes.