Land management issues in depopulated areas of Japan

This paper aims to clarify issues of the land management in depopulated areas of Japan and examine measures for sustainable use of the land. The depopulated areas experienced rapid depopulation by massive migration of young inhabitants towards urban areas by 1970s. Recently depopulation reached a new stage, which is caused mainly by natural decrease in population. Some communities disappeared and the number of community facing danger of disappearance, which is named “marginal community”, is increasing. Corresponding to decrease of the number of local inhabitants, secondary nature has declined and induced external diseconomy through deterioration of environment for life and production. The external diseconomy induces further depopulation and vicious circle of inhabitants’ action and nature reaction has begun. To break this vicious circle, sustainable use of the land is necessary. However, market of the land failed and does not function well due to incomplete information related to landowners and boundary of each parcel so on. Before the rapid growth, this information has been shared among inhabitants by their intimate networks, which can be called as social capital liking to the local land. The social capital decreased by migration and aging and currently even inhabitants lack the information considerably. Reconstruction of social capital is necessarily. The new social capital should be formed not only by local inhabitants but also by local economic agencies with assist of autonomous bodies. Raise of compliance level to keep environment by the national government is also important to recover the market function. It is an urgent task to design and to implement such multi-level governance system which realizes sustainable use of the land in depopulated areas.