Who will care for the land next?

Satoyama (A traditional Japanese landscape connecting villages, fields and forests.) is not untouched wilderness. It is a landscape shaped over generations through human care, cultivation, and adaptation—a way of living with nature rather than apart from it.

Today, that balance is becoming increasingly fragile as fewer people remain to maintain the land.

Land Stewardship program is IPI’s ongoing initiative focused on the long-term care of Fujino’s satoyama landscape.
Across the region, forests, bamboo groves, and farmland that have been maintained for generations are becoming increasingly difficult to care for as land stewards age and fewer people are able to take over. Without continued management, these landscapes risk becoming overgrown or abandoned, while the local knowledge and skills needed to maintain them are also being lost. In a mountainous area facing heavier rainfall and growing climate-related risks, the continued care of forests and farmland is becoming increasingly important.

IPI works with local farmers, land stewards, craftspeople, and community members to open new pathways for younger generations and people from outside the region to take part in this work. Through hands-on land care, repeated participation, and direct learning from local practitioners, participants gain practical knowledge while exploring new and creative ways to care for the land, make use of local resources, and rethink how stewardship can be shared collectively.

The initiative also considers how materials and resources that emerge through this work—such as bamboo, thinned wood, tea, and yuzu—can be reused and circulated through craft, food, making, and other forms of local practice. In this way, land management becomes connected not only to ecological care, but also to everyday culture, local knowledge, and new forms of creative use.

Rather than approaching conservation as a separate activity, IPI understands land stewardship as an ongoing relationship between ecology, knowledge, culture, and community.

Beginning in 2027, IPI will expand this work across several sites in Fujino, working with local landowners and practitioners to build a foundation for long-term land stewardship.
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