秋吉台の「山焼き」をめぐる住民意識

Abstract

Most of Japan's grasslands are thought to be the result of the human interruption of vegetational succession. In the Akiyoshidai National Park, a karstic plateau located in Yamaguchi pref., an artificial firing has long been set on every February to maintain its grassland landscape. The firing was one of the agricultural works done by the cattle breeders in old days. But recently, its agricultural importance has diminished as the decline of breeding, the firing is now carried out as the largest sightseeing event. About 1, 000 residents from 31 settlements take part in making firebreaks and firing itself.The motivation of this paper is what emotional change has occurred to the residents in the stream of history. The history of Akiyoshidai is divided into following three stages:1) Pre-modernization stageAgricultural use was active. Residents who were mostly farmers used grasses as green mature and to feed cattle. They cultivated at dolines on the plateau.2) Modernization stageThe post war rapid growth of economy caused the decline of agricultural importance of the grassland. On the other hand, the U. S. Army's maneuvers were planned to be done on the Akiyoshidai in 1956, and the opposition movement took place. This movement brought out the national interest on Akiyoshidai's landscape and its preservation.3) Tourism prevailing stageAs Akiyoshidai became a famous sightseeing place, the number of tourists has much increased after new traffic methods like Shinkansen were available. Thus the firing became important sightseeing event.From the interviews with residents, the author noticed several features as follows:1) Although the importance of tourism has increased, they are not very interested in it. For some residents the Akiyoshidai is recognized not as a nature-preserved area, but still as the open field to gather some plants.2) Although the firing work faces the excessive aging of residents and the lack of successors, they conservatively have no idea but that work must be done by them as long as possible.3) They seem to be unconscious of the purpose of the firing. It is concluded that the firing is to no more than their custom kept from days when they were cattle breeders, and is now what reminds them what they were.