Session 8. 3. A.

In pre-modern Japan, mountains and rivers were not seen as the property of anyone but as land entrusted to them from the heavens and the earth to live together as a common property. However, mountain areas in the backcountry, which have been protected and worshiped, are now being threatened by mega solar and wind power development projects, mainly by foreign investors. These are the forests that have preserved steep terrain and the lives of non-humans for a long time. In 2023, we bought a 60-hectare forest that belonged to Daijingu Shrine in the southernmost peninsula of Boso, Chiba Prefecture, to protect this land from development. We do not own this land but consider it borrowed from future generations, and we are restoring the forest to protect and nurture the rich natural environment and preserve it as a commons for present and future generations.

Over the past 30 years of my experience designing and constructing traditional Japanese gardens, I have come to admire the wisdom that lies deep within ancient Japanese techniques, and I am committed to researching, practicing, and disseminating these techniques as solutions to contemporary problems. The fundamental issue of modern civil engineering methods is that they do not consider the flow of underground water and air and the lives of non-human beings below ground. Instead, they squeeze and stagnate it, damaging the soil where diverse non-human beings, including fungi and microorganisms, breathe and carry out their life activities. This causes rainwater to not permeate into the soil and flow over the ground surface during heavy rainfall, scouring the topsoil and amplifying landslides and other disasters, aggravated by climate change.

Ancient techniques in Japan use organic materials such as leaves, rocks and branches, designing the infrastructure possible to work with tree roots and mycelia, creating healthy underground and forests so they become disaster resistant. There is important wisdom in “civil engineering by the people,” in which local people appropriately tended to the land and have lived there for generations while maintaining the richness of the land and nurturing the environment without damaging it. This presentation provides an example of reviving the commons in Japan, which enabled the ancestors to live their lives with appreciation for Mother Earth and gain and pass down wisdom from generation to generation. We believe that we have a role in preserving the diversity of life in this land, nurturing it and handing it down to future generations.

Governance and care of the commons is increasingly critical as a means to restore ecosystems, provide food and health care, build resilience to climate change, and keep communities connected to place. This presentation shares the growth of community groups caring for lands and waters across Hawaiʻi and explores lessons their work offers for broader efforts in commons governance. What kinds of work are these community groups, most native led, engaged in doing? What challenges do they face, and what are some of the key conditions that make their work possible? This presentation will integrate storytelling and creative products based on interviews, along with collaborative mapping, to share work with community organizations and networks over the past three years. We share engaged participatory research with over 20 community organizations, grass roots funding entities, university students and nonprofit alliances supporting community efforts, to understand broader movements across the Hawaiian islands, encompassing over 250 different sites - from farms to fishponds, forests, to entire watersheds. This project situates resurgence of community commons governance in Hawaiʻi within the global landback movement. Groups are engaged in education, rediscovery of cultural practice, healing, demilitarization, community based economic development, ecosystem restoration, and steady work to build sovereignty.

The concept of “land back” in marine conservation envisions a restorative model where coastal communities regain not only access to marine ecosystems, but the power to define what social and ecological well-being truly means. In Madagascar, this vision transcends access rights, pushing to decolonize conservation frameworks that have long been shaped by Western paradigms. Such models often silence local knowledge, placing natural forces like the ocean and climate in an ontological void—denying the spiritual and ecological relationships that see the ocean, weather, and ancestors as vibrant, active forces, deeply entangled in our shared climate reality.
Our findings stem from a transnational research partnership that engaged in bi-weekly discussions beginning in 2023, where we reflected on our own education and life experiences as we interviewed and analyzed 35 semi-structured interviews conducted in three coastal regions of Madagascar. Our conversations examined how we relate to and experience climate change, livelihood change, and programs conservation organizations implement in our communities in the name of biodiversity protection, climate mitigation and climate adaptation.
One of our findings is that while many younger community members express a sense of powerlessness in the face political economic marginalization and climate catastrophe, Malagasy elders and local leaders believe that reconfiguring taboos regarding and ancestral relations with nature is both possible and a prerequisite for a livable future. This reconfiguration is not a return to pre-colonial practices and beliefs, but an ontological intervention, re-introducing and legitimizing an alternative way of understanding and relating to the world. Part of this reconfiguration requires greater control over conservation-oriented funds and infrastructure in coastal areas. We see these desired shifts as essential steps to help right historical wrongs and enable the paradigm shift required for our survival.