The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins by Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing
Authors: Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing
forest” is already an oxymoron. Forests flourish without human interference. The greening of New England after its farmers moved West is a point of regional pride. Abandoned fields turn into forests; abandonment frees forests to reclaim their space. What happened in Japan to make people see abandonment as a loss to the liveliness and diversity of the forest? Several histories intertwine: forest replacement, forest neglect, forest disease, and human discontent. I turn to each.
Following World War II, U.S. occupying forces reduced land holdings, further privatizing common woodlands that had shrunk in theMeiji reforms. In 1951, national forest planning began, which meant standardizing the timber milling industry to make wood scalable. New roads were built, allowing more harvesting. As Japan’s economy revved up, the building trade demanded more of the now-scalable wood. Chapter 15 discussed the consequences. Clear-cutting was introduced; deforested lands were not allowed to grow back. By the early 1960s, what had once been peasant forests across central Japan had become sugi and hinoki tree plantations. Satoyama groups reacted to people’s sense of alienation from forests, derived from the dominance of plantations.
At the edges of the flourishing cities, developers took a look at remaining peasant landscapes and grabbed them for suburban complexes and golf courses. Some satoyama conservation groups developed out of struggles against developers. Ironically, these eager volunteers were sometimes the children of migrants from the countryside, who had given up rural life. These are the satoyama defenders who call up the villages of their grandparents as the model from which rural landscapes should be reconstructed.
Even in the countryside, things were changing, and this is the second story of what happened to the forests. In the 1950s and 1960s, Japan went through a period of rapid urbanization. Farmers left the countryside behind; rural areas once used for peasant livelihoods became spaces of neglect and abandonment. Those who stayed in the countryside had less and less reason to maintain satoyama forests. Japan’s abrupt “fuel revolution” meant that even remote rural farmers were using fossil fuels to heat their homes, cook, and drive tractors by the end of the 1950s. Firewood and charcoal were abandoned. (Charcoal retained a residual use for traditional practices, such as the tea ceremony.) Thus, the most important uses of the peasant forest disappeared. Coppicing was discontinued as firewood and charcoal use sharply declined. Raking for green manure disappeared with the advent of fossil-fuel-based fertilizers. Grassland maintenance and cutting for thatching also died out as grass roofs were replaced. The neglected forests changed, becoming dense with shrubs and newly established evergreen broadleaf trees. Invasive species such as moso bamboo crowded in. The understory of light-loving herbs was lost. Pines were smothered in the shade.
Activist farmer Kokki Goto explains the situation in his memoir. 2
The forestlands frequently used by villagers of Ishimushiro, or what we call satoyama, were close enough that we could make four round trips a day on foot, two in the morning and two in the afternoon, carrying bundles weighing 60 kg on our back. If we walked farther into the forest, we would find it too burdensome to carry home bundles of raw wood, so we had to make them into charcoal…. In Ishimushiro, we have approximately 1,000 hectares of iriai [common] forestlands that cover most of the satoyama forestlands. The iriai forestlands are jointly used by 90 households that belong to the Ishimushiro Common Forest Association….
In the old days when there were few ways of earning cash income, it was indispensable for villagers to have iriai rights in order to live here. We had to rely on the forestlands around the hamlet for most of the necessities of life. Those without the right to gather firewood and brushwood for
Following World War II, U.S. occupying forces reduced land holdings, further privatizing common woodlands that had shrunk in theMeiji reforms. In 1951, national forest planning began, which meant standardizing the timber milling industry to make wood scalable. New roads were built, allowing more harvesting. As Japan’s economy revved up, the building trade demanded more of the now-scalable wood. Chapter 15 discussed the consequences. Clear-cutting was introduced; deforested lands were not allowed to grow back. By the early 1960s, what had once been peasant forests across central Japan had become sugi and hinoki tree plantations. Satoyama groups reacted to people’s sense of alienation from forests, derived from the dominance of plantations.
At the edges of the flourishing cities, developers took a look at remaining peasant landscapes and grabbed them for suburban complexes and golf courses. Some satoyama conservation groups developed out of struggles against developers. Ironically, these eager volunteers were sometimes the children of migrants from the countryside, who had given up rural life. These are the satoyama defenders who call up the villages of their grandparents as the model from which rural landscapes should be reconstructed.
Even in the countryside, things were changing, and this is the second story of what happened to the forests. In the 1950s and 1960s, Japan went through a period of rapid urbanization. Farmers left the countryside behind; rural areas once used for peasant livelihoods became spaces of neglect and abandonment. Those who stayed in the countryside had less and less reason to maintain satoyama forests. Japan’s abrupt “fuel revolution” meant that even remote rural farmers were using fossil fuels to heat their homes, cook, and drive tractors by the end of the 1950s. Firewood and charcoal were abandoned. (Charcoal retained a residual use for traditional practices, such as the tea ceremony.) Thus, the most important uses of the peasant forest disappeared. Coppicing was discontinued as firewood and charcoal use sharply declined. Raking for green manure disappeared with the advent of fossil-fuel-based fertilizers. Grassland maintenance and cutting for thatching also died out as grass roofs were replaced. The neglected forests changed, becoming dense with shrubs and newly established evergreen broadleaf trees. Invasive species such as moso bamboo crowded in. The understory of light-loving herbs was lost. Pines were smothered in the shade.
Activist farmer Kokki Goto explains the situation in his memoir. 2
The forestlands frequently used by villagers of Ishimushiro, or what we call satoyama, were close enough that we could make four round trips a day on foot, two in the morning and two in the afternoon, carrying bundles weighing 60 kg on our back. If we walked farther into the forest, we would find it too burdensome to carry home bundles of raw wood, so we had to make them into charcoal…. In Ishimushiro, we have approximately 1,000 hectares of iriai [common] forestlands that cover most of the satoyama forestlands. The iriai forestlands are jointly used by 90 households that belong to the Ishimushiro Common Forest Association….
In the old days when there were few ways of earning cash income, it was indispensable for villagers to have iriai rights in order to live here. We had to rely on the forestlands around the hamlet for most of the necessities of life. Those without the right to gather firewood and brushwood for