In recent years, efforts to conserve and restore satoyama landscapes have become increasingly prevalent throughout Japan. These efforts have conserved threatened landscapes, protected biodiversity and engaged civil society in land-use planning and management. However, the conservation of satoyama continues to present a paradox familiar to landscape planners and ecologists: how can we conserve, but avoid freezing, landscapes of dynamic change? This article works through this paradox by examining the dynamic and continually evolving history of satoyama woodlands. The history of satoyama presented here demonstrates that these landscapes have been, and continue to be, produced in tandem with the evolving needs of successive generations. Accordingly, it is imperative to consider how satoyama landscapes might mesh with present day social needs and values. Faced with curbing global climate change, we suggest that present day social needs and values are well aligned with utilizing satoyama woodlands as a source of renewable biomass energy to reduce carbon emissions and realize associated multifunctional woodland values. Thus, the conceptual perspective advanced here is that resolution of the continuing conservation paradox lies in taking the freeze off satoyama woodlands-and by extension other vernacular landscapes-and thereby letting them live.

Urban and peri-urban satoyama woodlands have become focal points of restoration throughout Japan. Prior to the abrupt shift to fossil fuels in the 1950-60s, villages coppiced these woods to produce a sustainable supply of wood fuel, a process that also sustained a dynamic woodland structure rich in biodiversity. Currently, amidst a "satoyama renaissance," thousands of volunteer groups are restoring management to abandoned woods. Yet while volunteers are the main drivers of the satoyama renaissance, volunteer management tends to be limited in spatial extent and focused on the "parkification" of woodlands. Through a case study of four satoyama restoration scenarios we found that reintroduction of coppicing for wood fuel-"refueling"-can play a role in addressing climate change through fossil fuel substitution. We suggest that this literal refueling of satoyama restoration could, in a more metaphorical sense, help to refuel restoration efforts by strengthening both restoration practice and the authenticity of restoration experiences. KEYWORDSbiomass, climate change, satoyama woodlands, urban ecological restoration ᮄ "Cities" have long been seen as the antithesis of "nature." Yet over the last few decades the conceptual wall partitioning the natural from the urban has been attacked and appears to have been finally breached. This storming of the nature/culture divide has come from many directions, but one key thrust has been to work through this dualism by bringing meta-concepts such as ecosystem and ecology, long the domain of people who theorize about pristine wildlands, to bear on urban environments. With this conceptual progress well established, we can now turn to the more substantive task of improving the quality of urban ecologies. The importance of this task cannot be overstated, for Nature and Culture 5(3), Winter 2010: 251-276 © Berghahn Journals

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A worldwide introduction of renewable energy has been required to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Concomitantly, this has caused conflict between renewable energy development and local communities over landscape changes. This study aims to clarify the factors of conflict and find a way of conflict management. A case study on Japan is used, where a solar rush occurred due to the feed-in tariff (FIT) system. We analyze the public reasons to worry about renewable energy and the spatial characteristics of its locations. A socio-spatial approach is used by first utilizing a qualitative survey based on questionnaires and interviews with the local governments to understand the awareness regarding the issues, and then utilizing a quantitative survey on the location changes to solar power by using GIS. The results suggest that there were links between local governments’ concerns and the location of solar power concentration. These results show that conflicts over renewable energy are not unavoidable and may be managed by local governments that can act as intermediaries with sufficient knowledge of the local communities.

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