Keywords

These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

1 Introduction

Agricultural lands comprise about 40% of global terrestrial area (FAO 2009). Although its primary services are the provision of food, fiber, and fuel, agriculture—as an ecosystem directly managed by human beings—plays a unique role in both supplying and relying on ecosystem services (Swinton et al. 2007; MA 2005; Zhang et al. 2007). The links within the agricultural landscape, namely the landscape pattern and process, impact the ecosystem services provided to society (Matson et al. 1997). Thus, it is essential to assess agriculture’s ecosystem services from a landscape perspective (Tscharntke et al. 2005).

Rice is the most important irrigated crop in the world (FAO 2009). Due to the long history of rice cultivation in Asia, there are various kinds of traditional rice paddy landscapes that provide multiple ecosystem services to local people. Taking as study objects two traditional rice paddy/terrace landscapes in eastern Asia, the Satoyama in Japan and the Hani terrace landscape in southwest China, this article summarizes and analyzes the two areas’ characteristics and ecosystem services . The study’s aims are: (1) to compare the landscapes’ pattern and ecosystem services , (2) to analyze the target and nontarget ecosystem services within and outside the landscapes, (3) to discuss the landscapes’ current status and the challenges they are facing, and (4) to find lessons learned from Satoyama that may benefit the sustainability of the Hani rice terraces .

2 Components and Features of the Satoyama and the Hani Terrace Landscape

The traditional Satoyama landscape is a mosaic of secondary forests (also called Satoyama forests), wet rice paddies, cultivated fields, grasslands, streams, ponds, and irrigation ditches surrounding a Japanese farming village—the entire landscape necessary to supplying the needs of a community (Fukamachi et al. 2001; Kobori and Primac 2003; Takeuchi et al. 2003). Because the Satoyama landscape is the traditional rural/agriculture landscape of Japan , its features exist on a national scale (Table 14.1), and the two most famous Satoyama landscapes are the rice paddies located in Noto Peninsula and Sado Island (Fig. 14.1).

Table 14.1 Components and features of the Satoyama and the Hani terrace landscape
Full size table
Fig. 14.1
figure 1

Location of the Satoyama in Japan and the Hani terrace landscape in SW China

Full size image

The Hani terrace landscapes are composed of forests, ponds, villages, rice terraces inundated all year, and dry fields. They are located in the Honghe Hani and Yi Autonomous Prefecture, in the southeast part of Yunnan Province, southwestern China (Fig. 14.1). People of various races, with the Hani people being the main ethnic group, have maintained this spectacular agricultural landscape for over 1300 years (Table 14.1). Compared to the Satoyama landscape , the Hani terrace landscapes are concentrated in this specific bio-cultural region. They are a unique traditional agricultural land use system in the high-relief mountainous region with a subtropical monsoon climate.

Both the Satoyama and Hani landscapes are traditional subsistence farming systems, which provide a bundle of ecosystem services (Takeuchi 2010; Jiao et al. 2012), including provisioning services (species used as food sources, timber, medicines, and other useful products); regulating services (flood control, climate stabilization); supporting services (soil formation, water purification); and cultural services (aesthetic or recreational assets, such as ecotourism attractions, providing tangible and intangible benefits) (Kremen and Ostfeld 2005). In addition, both landscapes are facing serious challenges on local and global scales, although these challenges differ in natural and social respects. For example, owing to economic globalization and the aging of local farmers, the Satoyama landscape was underused or abandoned, which caused a decrease in bio-cultural diversity. On the contrary, the Hani terrace landscape is under high pressure to develop economically because of the poverty of local farmers and underdeveloped socioeconomic conditions. In this circumstance, it may be argued that the Hani terrace landscape is in the early overuse stage that the Satoyama landscape faced before the 1960s.

3 Spatial Pattern and Ecological Process in the Satoyama and the Hani Terrace Landscape

Landscape pattern—the spatial arrangement of ecosystems—can influence the horizontal and vertical flows of materials, such as water, sediments, or nutrients (Peterjohn and Correll 1984), and other important ecological processes, such as net primary production (Turner 1989). Therefore, landscape pattern can affect the spatial distribution and delivery of ecosystem services . The center of the Satoyama landscape is the settlement surrounded by small, gently sloping rice paddies, and large areas of secondary forests (Fig. 14.2a). All the ecosystems or elements in the Satoyama landscape were once strongly connected to each other through the agricultural land use system (Takeuchi et al. 2003), mainly via organic fertilizers, such as manure, fodder, ash, and forest litter.

Fig. 14.2
figure 2

Spatial structure from high mountains to river valley with strongly connected elements in a the Satoyama landscape (after Yamamoto 2001, from Takeuchi et al. 2003) and b the Hani terrace landscape

Full size image

The Hani terrace landscape stretches across the whole mountain slope, with the natural forests on the mountaintops as one major landscape element (Fig. 14.2b). The forest-village-terraces structure along the Hani landscape’s slope forms an efficient resource circulation system. The water from the forests runs through an irrigation network to reach the hamlets first, followed by the terraces . Then it continues downslope into the river valley (Jiao et al. 2012). This flow of water and nutrients in the Hani landscape is important to the provision of ecosystem services , since those services are controlled by, and normally characterized by, complex ecological processes and functions that sustain and improve human life (Daily 1997).

4 Ecosystem Services of the Satoyama and the Hani Terrace Landscape

Both the Satoyama and the Hani terrace landscape are mosaics of well-connected ecosystems, including forests, human settlements, rice paddies/terraces , and water areas. Each landscape element has substantial components, which have multiple ecosystem services that are directly or indirectly related to each other. These ecosystem services are divided into “within” and “outside” categories, due to the transfer of biological resources/flows, which spatially separates on-site and off-site ecosystem services (Guo et al. 2000). The ecosystem services are also classified into “target or desirable” and “nontarget” categories because, for example, provisioning services, including food, fiber, timber, and other subsistence materials, are the target ecosystem services farmers pursue, while others, especially regulating and supporting services, are the nontarget categories, which mainly benefit the public. The ecosystem services provided by the two traditional agricultural landscapes are summarized in Table 14.2.

Table 14.2 Ecosystem services of the traditional Satoyama landscape and the Hani terrace landscape
Full size table

According to Fukamachi et al. (2001), Washitani (2001), and Takeuchi et al. (2003), each element in the traditional Satoyama has its special functions or target ecosystem services related to the traditional daily life of Japanese people. For example, coppice forests were traditionally used to produce fuelwood and charcoal; to feed cattle and horses; to collect chestnuts, young shoots of ferns, herbs, and mushrooms as foods; and to gather litter in winter and green manure in summer to fertilize rice paddies or crop fields. The grasslands provided fodder for livestock, straw for homes, and organic fertilizer for rice planting. All the other landscape components provided special products or goods for local peoples, directly or indirectly (Table 14.2). Due to the continuous utilization and management of coppicing, mowing, irrigating, and harvesting over centuries, the Satoyama landscape became a heterogeneous mosaic of habitats, which consisted of a succession series of forests, grasslands, water areas, and rice paddies. In addition, collecting organic fertilizer from forests and grasslands to fertilize rice paddies consolidated the relationship between landscape elements, thus generating a conglomerate of regulating and supporting services (Table 14.2). The landscape has also generated many kinds of cultural services, such as nonmaterial spiritual and religious benefits, recreation, aesthetic values, and the cultural heritage of historic sites, including sacred woodlands, shrines, temples (Fukamachi et al. 2011).

Compared to the Satoyama landscape , the Hani terrace landscape is different in the following aspects.

  1. 1.

    It encompasses not only secondary forests, but also natural forests, tea gardens, and huge, steeply sloping rice terraces inundated all year.

  2. 2.

    The current Hani’s daily life is mainly dependent on terrace and forest target provisioning services—such as the rice, fish, and other aquatic animals from terraces , edible hygrophytes from terrace levees and semiaquatic patches, firewood, timber, edible wild mushrooms, plants, insects, and animals from forests.

  3. 3.

    Due to the limited water supply for planting rice in high mountains with a subtropical monsoon climate, the Hani people have developed an excellent irrigation system and water conservation strategies to regulate water flow. During the regulating process, the Hani people have realized the target ecosystem services of water conservation and also the significant nontarget regulating and supporting services for macro-climate, hydrological cycle, soil formation, and nutrient cycling.

  4. 4.

    The Hani people believe many natural things, such as mountains, forests, rivers, terraces , and rice, all have a divine owner who must be respected. Therefore, the Hani terrace landscape provides many types of cultural services. Additionally, the Hani terraces have produced a highly valued creation service for both national and international societies, after the spectacular landscape was publicized by Yann Layma, a French photographer, from 1988 to 1993. His work made the Hani terrace landscape a world-famous tourist destination.

5 Challenges in the Satoyama and the Hani Terrace Landscape

According to the Statistical Handbook of Japan 2011, because of the highly developed economy and the aging of farmers, Japan ’s cultivated acreage shrank year after year from 6.09 million ha in 1961 to 4.59 million ha in 2010. The most common cause for the decrease was cultivation abandonment , accounting for approximately 44.0% of all cases. As one of the consequences of land abandonment , in fiscal year 2009, the self-sufficiency rate of all foods, except rice and vegetables, was highly dependent on imports from foreign countries (Statistics Bureau 2011). A similar phenomenon also happened in lumber production. Therefore, abandoning the Satoyama landscape and importing ecosystem services led to the biodiversity and ecosystem services crises in Japan , due to the loss of human-dominated seminatural habitats. In addition, high risks of climate change correlate to decreased ecosystem services in many ways (Table 14.3).

Table 14.3 Biodiversity and ecosystem services crises in the Satoyama (summarized from report of the third national biodiversity strategy of Japan —JG 2007)
Full size table

As for the Hani terrace landscape, although now it is still keeping its original status, economic and social development strategies are putting continuous pressures on its ecosystem services (Table 14.4). For example, the wonderful beauty of terraces attracts numerous national and international tourists. Thus, tourism has become a pillar industry in Yuanyang. Nevertheless, the conflicts are very serious between farmers and tourism companies because the beautiful scenery is created and maintained by farmers, but the marketed recreation value only benefits the company and local government. Additionally, large numbers of tourists consume lots of wild, edible plants, as well as upstream water, thus exhausting some wild species and causing water shortages for irrigation in downstream areas. Therefore, the trade-offs among different ecosystem services and human well-being have become difficult risks.

Table 14.4 Challenges faced by the Hani terrace landscape
Full size table

At present, the Hani terrace landscape is facing many challenges, such as severe droughts caused by global climate change , landslides and terrace collapse caused by a vulnerable environment of steep slopes and friable metamorphic rocks, loss of rice landraces caused by the expansion of hybrid rice and application of modern agricultural technology, poverty of local peoples, loss of traditional ecological knowledge , off-farm labor migration caused by social and economic factors, and conflicts among stakeholders in tourism development .

Although originally both the Satoyama and the Hani terrace landscape had many target and nontarget ecosystem services , these have changed, and will continue to change, with the pressures from both the inside and the outside worlds. Adaptation of sustainable management is essential to conserving the landscapes and keeping their multiple functions and multi-services (Takeuchi et al. 2003).

6 Lessons from the Satoyama Crises to Benefit the Development of the Hani Terrace Landscape

Compared to the three crises of the Satoyama landscape , the Hani terrace landscape is still managed in a traditional, rice-farming way. It provides multiple ecosystem services because most Hani people, including younger generations, still depend on the terrace landscape to survive, and the holders of traditional knowledge are passing their oral legacy to new generations, although few young residents know all of it.

Currently, many strategies have been proposed and implemented to revitalize the Satoyama landscape , such as the “Satoyama Initiative,” the “Sub-global assessment of Satoyama and Satoumi in Japan ,” “The 10th Conference of the Parties (COP 10) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD),” and related strategies. It should be noted that these strategies’ most essential idea is to find dynamic, balanced interactions between human and nature in the long term, and to rebuild a sustainable, low-carbon, resource-circulating, and nature-harmonious society with an eye toward resilience enhancement (Takeuchi 2010). In 2011, two pilot sites of the Satoyama landscape were designated as Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS). One of them is “Sado’s Satoyama in harmony with Japanese crested ibis.” At present, valuable actions of environment -friendly farming are being carried out on Sado Island in the Niigata Prefecture. Through winter flooding of rice paddies, together with organic farming and fish ladders, the Satoyama has been restored to provide a suitable habitat for many aquatic species, such as crested ibises, loaches, and other fish. The rice produced there is certified as “Creating villages coexisting with crested ibises,” and it is then traded at higher prices than ordinary rice. In this system, ecosystem services and human well-being are integrated into a multifunctional landscape. The Sado success can be used as a revitalizing model for rural development in Japan .

Some lessons can be learned from the Satoyama evolution to help manage the Hani terrace landscape.

  1. 1.

    The Satoyama was abandoned because of aging farmers as a result of decreasing birth rates and younger generations migrating to cities seeking higher income. Now, the Hani terrace landscape is facing the same problems of losing the younger generation. In the near future, the Hani landscape will be facing terrace abandonment . Therefore, determining how to increase the farmers’ income and human well-being is vital to maintaining the whole landscape. The brand-certified rice produced by this area should be traded at higher prices via specific policies. Efficient management of local resources is the most important strategy to conserve biodiversity as well as ecological services.

  2. 2.

    The consolidation of irrigation and drainage systems , paddy levees, and the banks of both river and pond has diminished habitat quality and caused fragmentation by cutting off the flow of water and nutrients in the Satoyama landscape . Thus, the application of agricultural technologies in the Hani terrace landscape should consider a new kind of building material, rather than concrete, which will preserve flow connectivity and the seminatural habitats for the conservation of biodiversity and ecological services.

  3. 3.

    To combat global climate change , the Hani rice terraces should also enhance monitoring and develop corresponding adaptation methods from both scientific and indigenous ways. New strategies and policies should also be put into practice to protect the rich rice landraces and endangered species.

In 2010, a report on the background of the “Satoyama Initiative” compared cases from many countries, including Kenya, Tanzania, Argentina, Mexico , Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Bangladesh, India, Spain , Australia . In this report, the Satoyama landscape was defined as a “socio-ecological production landscape,” a name which highlights the various physical structures, management techniques, and governance systems that characterize these landscapes, the benefits they provide, or the threats they currently face. In this way, the “Satoyama Initiative” can reorganize the importance of these landscapes for ecosystem services and human well-being, as well as promote reconstructing mechanisms for managing such landscapes internationally (Takeuchi 2010). The Hani terrace landscape should learn from these international cases, such as the Satoyama crises, to avoid the negative effects of modernization and globalization and instead cultivate a sustainable path to development.