Traditional Ecological Knowledge & Ecoliteracy along the Hei River, Iwate Prefecture, Japan: Our research in the Hei River Area, MIyako City, Iwate Prefecture, indicates that food/subsistence diversity supported by traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) play a critical role in the resilience of food systems and communities. TEK and local networks have proven to be especially important in cases of floods, typhoons, earthquakes and other disasters. In the mountainous part of this area, depopulation is a particularly serious problem, and large-scale land development plans with anticipated serious environmental damage threaten small-scale food producers.
Results of our Hei Project was published in the following book: Habu, J., T. Sasaki and M. Fukunaga (eds.). 2018. Weaving the Knowledge of Mountains, Rivers and the Ocean: Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Ecoliteracy in Tohoku, Northern Japan. 280 pp. Tokai University Press, Hiratsuka, Japan (in Japanese). Link | PDF – Intro, Ch 01, 06, 08, 09 & 15
Junko Habu's Website (UC Berkeley) 