Satoyama

Satoyama is a Japanese term that combines two words meaning “village” and “mountain,” and was traditionally used to denote the highlands rising above a village, on which the local community relied for a variety of forest products, food, drinking water, ecosystem regulating services, and others. In recent years, the term has come to be associated with the traditional landscape of Japan, to the extent that the government considers 40% of Japan’s land to be satoyama landscapes. The term has been further expanded into the global policymaking realm with the establishment of the Satoyama Initiative, a mechanism for promoting sustainable use and conservation of biodiversity under the UN Convention on Biological Diversity.