ECOPLUS will conduct the weekend faming workshop, “ABC in a rive paddy,” on 21-22 September in Minamiuonuma, Niigata. We are again having unstable climate until now including too hot and too long rainy condition. Now new ears of rice are coming out and the flowers of rice are fully blossoms. When accumulated daily mean temperature will reached to 950 -1000 in Celsius, it is the best time to harvest.
The workshop aims to re-think about so-called modern and convenient life style through hands-on experience in totally organic rice paddies and with the traditional way to grow rice. Using sickles, we will cut the stalks of the rice by hands and will tie sheaves to hang for sun-dry. Those activities are almost gone in industrialized faming now.
You can enjoy the strength of the stalks as you cut the stalks with a sickle, the weight of the sheaves on your shoulder and listen to the sound made by the grains touching each other.
Suggested train schedule from Tokyo Joetsu Shinkansen Toki 309 Departing Tokyo at 08:52, arriving Echigo-Yuzawa at 10:20 Joetsu local line Departing Echigo-Yuzawa at 10:30, arriving Joetsu Kokusai Skiing Ground at 10:44
Contents and bringing Harvesting by hands. Will be cancelled only in stormy condition. Bring your own lunch for Saturday, and water during activities. Clothings may get muddy. Insect repellent, a hat/cap. We recommend to come into the paddy with rubber boots. Boots rentals are available with 800 JPY. More information will be provided for those whose participation is confirmed.
定員 Limit of participants. 15人程度。Up to around 15 participants.
参加費 Fee 一般：16,000円（プログラム費、1泊2食の宿泊費、2日目の昼食、保険を含む）。学生12,000円（同）。男女別相部屋です。ご家族連れは調整させていただきます。学生等で田んぼ脇の民家での寝袋泊も可、9,000円。宿泊なしの場合は、大人8,000円、小学生は1,000円。 16,000 JPY including program fee, accommodations with two meals, lunch on Sunday, insurance. Shared room. Students and other youth with sleeping bags can stay in a house next to the paddy with 9,000 JPY.
Suggested train schedule from Tokyo Joetsu Shinkansen Toki 309 Departing Tokyo at 08:52, arriving Echigo-Yuzawa at 10:20 Joetsu local line Departing Echigo-Yuzawa at 10:30, arriving Joetsu Kokusai Skiing Ground at 10:44
Contents and bringing Weeding by hands. Will be cancelled only in stormy condition. Bring your own lunch for Saturday, and water during activities. Clothings may get muddy. Insect repellent, a hat/cap. We recommend to come into the paddy with bare feet to feel the soil directly. Beach sandals are useful to wash your feet in a stream. More information will be provided for those whose participation is confirmed.
定員 Limit of participants. 15人程度。Up to around 15 participants.
参加費 Fee 一般：16,000円（プログラム費、1泊2食の宿泊費、2日目の昼食、保険を含む）。学生12,000円（同）。男女別相部屋です。ご家族連れは調整させていただきます。学生等で田んぼ脇の民家での寝袋泊も可、9,000円。宿泊なしの場合は、大人8,000円、小学生は1,000円。 16,000 JPY including program fee, accommodations with two meals, lunch on Sunday, insurance. Shared room. Students and other youth with sleeping bags can stay in a house next to the paddy with 9,000 JPY.
ECOPLUS will organize the workshop, “ABC” in a Rice Paddy, in 2024. Although the climate is very curious, such as the snow melted one month earlier than normal years, we will conduct the programs as follows.
Rice planting; May 25-26 Weeding in the paddy; June 22-23 Harvesting; September 21-22 (tentative)
The rice paddy, we will conduct the program, was where TAKANO Takako and OHMAE Junichi has been learning the traditional rice growing by elders living nearby since 2007. Since no chemical materials has been used for nearly 20 years, many creatures such as pond snails, dragonflies, newts, loaches and others including listed species.
Last year, we successfully revived a nice paddy which had had not been cultivated for more than a decade. We will use the rice paddy this year, too.
昨年復田した10数年間使われてこなかった田んぼ。 A rice paddy, which had not been cultivated for more than a decade, was revived last year and will be used this year.
Suggested train schedule from Tokyo Joetsu Shinkansen Toki 309 Departing Tokyo at 08:52, arriving Echigo-Yuzawa at 10:20 Joetsu local line Departing Echigo-Yuzawa at 10:30, arriving Joetsu Kokusai Skiing Ground at 10:44
Contents and bringing Planting seedlings by hands. Will be cancelled only in stormy condition. Bring your own lunch for Saturday, and water during activities. Clothings may get muddy. Insect repellent, a hat/cap. We recommend to come into the paddy with bare feet to feel the soil directly. Beach sandals are useful to wash your feet in a stream. More information will be provided for those whose participation is confirmed.
定員 Limit of participants. 15人程度。Up to around 15 participants.
参加費 Fee 一般：16,000円（プログラム費、1泊2食の宿泊費、2日目の昼食、保険を含む）。学生12,000円（同）。男女別相部屋です。ご家族連れは調整させていただきます。学生等で田んぼ脇の民家での寝袋泊も可、9,000円。宿泊なしの場合は、大人8,000円、小学生は1,000円。 16,000 JPY including program fee, accommodations with two meals, lunch on Sunday, insurance. Shared room. Students and other youth with sleeping bags can stay in a house next to the paddy with 9,000 JPY.
This program started in 1992, but was cancelled in 2000 due to the COVID-19, and this time we were finally able to conduct the program after 4 years. Since it had been a long time since this program was held, the number of participants and the schedule were kept low. One of the expected participants fell ill on the morning of our departure, so we ended up with a total of five participants (four university students and one high school student) who stayed on the island for seven days.
We stayed in the village of Aff, located in the Tamil community of Yap Island. The village has well-preserved traditions, such as well-maintained stone paths.
Our base of operations was the village meeting hall. It is a one-story building made of new concrete. We began by building a cooking hut and shower house in the back.
The first three days were a time of learning about the wisdom and skills of the local way of life. We made mats for sleeping on the floor by weaving them from large coconut palm fronds. We also learned how to husk a young coconut and drink the juice inside. Coconut milk for cooking is made by grinding and squeezing the copra from old coconuts left on the ground for some time. The fibrous outer part of the coconut is dried and used as a fuel. The participants were amazed at the traditional wisdom of using nature without waste and transforming it into food and tools.
In the middle part of the program, we were given the opportunity to stay with a host family for two days and one night, with each of participant visiting a different family and spending time with them as a family.
They cooked together and played with the children at each home, and were fully accepted into the local lifestyle.
When they returned in the evening of the second day, they had wreaths ont thier heads and were filled with souvenirs, including handmade bags and dinner baskets overflowing with fish, taro, and other delicacies. They returned home with their host families, laughing happily together.
The last days of our stay were busy with activities at sea, participation in local community work, and a farewell party, leaving no time to catch our breath.
The lagoon was not very clear at the shore due to nutrients from mangrove forests and other sources, but once you get closer to the reef, you can see clearly into the shining world. We also joined a local conservation organization, the Tamil Rescue Conservation Trust (TRCT), as they worked to clean algae and mud from the giant clams, which are caged and protected from predators.
The island of Yap has been experiencing a drought since December 2023, with almost no rainfall, and precipitation from January to March is 1/20th of a normal year.
For this reason, the villagers of Aff began digging an old well in an effort to revive a well that had been abandoned for decades in order to secure water for daily use. We were allowed to participate in this community work and dug a hole as deep as our waists. The sticky soil in the valley line stuck to the shovel and made digging difficult to dig, but after about two hours of taking turns with the locals, we were able to dig down to almost shoulder deep.
We were able to see firsthand the effects of global climate change and how residents are working together to respond.
There are two flights per week between Yap and Guam. Both flights operate from midnight to dawn, so we arrived on Sunday morning around 1:00 a.m. and left the island before dawn the following Sunday, a full week’s stay. Although they would have been on the island for some more days, the participants were still amazed at the wisdom and skill of using one thing in many ways, and they also noticed the abundance of learning in the daily life of the island.
We have been informed by another village in the same Tamil community that they can host our group next time. We are looking at the situation and considering the next schedule as the water supply has already started on time due to the water shortage, and also the summer heat is more intense than before.
Three local leaders of an eco-tourism project in the Tamil region of Yap Island, Federated States of Micronesia, implemented by ECOPLUS with support from JICA, visited Japan for training activities from April 3 to 9.
The three who came to Japan were Lubumow (45), Ken(39), and Janice (29), officers of the Tamil Resources Conservation Trust (TRCT), which is engaged in conservation activities in the Tamil municiparity of Yap Island.
After spending 3 days in Guam to obtain visas, they arrived at Narita Airport on the evening of the 3rd. The next day, the 4th, they flew to Miyakejima to stay with Yoshiaki and Yoshiko Unno’s family, who have been involved in ecotourism activities there for a long time. Miyakejima has been battling volcanic eruptions for years. The island’s way of life is deeply rooted in the struggle against eruptions. The group was surprised to see the black ground by volcanic ejecta. Everywhere on the coast and on the land there is a connection to the eruption.
The group was told how the growth of the Oyashabushi tree, which fixes nitrogen in the air into the soil, in a nutrient-poor environment, followed by the growth of silver grass, and then the recovery of vegetation.
The participants were also shown the wisdom of planting the Oyashabushi trees at intervals of several meters to provide nutrients to the soil and to grow ashitaba, a local vegetable.
On the coastal part of the island, we watched the Kuroshio Current lapping against the cliffs. On Yap Island, the entire island is surrounded by coral reefs, and you cannot see the sheer cliffs.
They seemed to have realized the value of their natural environment in the very different scene from Yap, where the calm sea, called a lagoon, surrounded by coral reefs without waves, and white sandy beaches made of crushed coral are the norm.
They seemed to have realized the value of their natural environment in the very different scene from Yap, where the calm sea, called a lagoon, surrounded by coral reefs without waves, and white sandy beaches made of crushed coral are the norm.
In the second half of the tour, we moved to Minamiuonuma City in Niigata Prefecture, where snow still lingers. The three of them actually entered the rice fields where the snow had just melted and experienced the process of spreading wood ash, raising old stubble with three stakes, and rebuilding the edge of the rice field with shovels and hoes.
They also heard explanations of how the water around the rice fields is arranged and how the flow of water is managed and maintained.
On Yap Island, the staple food is taro and wetlands like rice paddies are managed as taro fields.
They seem different, but they do similar things, Lubumow said in his reflections.
Ecotourism is interpreted and developed in many different ways around the world.
It seemed that understanding the relationship between nature and traditional lifestyles in a given place and looking for clues for the next sustainable future would be the axis of ecotourism in Yap Island.
On March 2 and 3, 2024, ECOPLUS organized a field trip to Minamiuonuma City, Niigata Prefecture, for overseas researchers who came to Japan for an international conference.
The participants were part of a group attending the International Outdoor Education Research Conference (IOERC 10), which began the following week in Tokyo. Seventeen people from eight countries – Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Denmark, Norway, Greece, and Singapore – participated in this field trip.
This is the first time the IOERC has been held in Asia. Among the five field trips arranged in Hokkaido, Nagano and Niigata, this field trip was filled up quickly. Therefore, with the cooperation of local residents, we were able to secure transportation, and increase the number of participants.
The theme was “Nature and Life in Japan. We were allowed to stay in the mountain village of Shimizu village, where there was still more than a meter of snow remaining,
The group of outdoor specialists quickly got used to wearing “kanjiki,” or traditional Japanese snow shoes, and walked on the snow to visit shrines and forests near the village.
FUKASAWA Kazuki, a local nature expert, explained the animal tracks in the snow. He also explained them the long tradition of respecting the mountain as a deity.
At the guesthouse, local foods such as wild vegetables and meat were served one after another. They were amazed at the technique of preserving the previous year’s wild vegetables in a fresh state.
On the second day, the group moved to the town for a Zen practice at the 500-year-old Ryuzawa-ji Zen Temple. They were also able to observe the brewing of sake at the300-year-old Aoki Sake Brewery.
For most of them, it was their first visit to Japan. The participants seemed to be stimulated by the nature and lifestyle of Japanese rural and mountain villages, which were different from the typical Japanese tourist spots such as Tokyo or Kyoto. The participants seemed to deepen and broaden their concept of outdoor education.
We really appreciate the cooperation of the local people.
