Does protecting nature really mean being poor? --Quiet Revolution in EU Rural Policy (circa 1995)

Does protecting nature really mean being poor? --Quiet Revolution in EU Rural Policy (circa 1995)

In 1995 Europe was in the winds of integration. But at its feet, rural silence prevailed. In the countryside of Bavaria, the traditional way of life was dying out as urbanization and industrialization pushed the forests and pastures out of existence. A transformation was taking place in a region where it was once said that those who protected nature would become poor.

The European Union and state governments have provided support in the form of environmental benefits to those who continue to protect the forests by reducing the use of pesticides and grazing. Conservation was now a subsidized and legitimately valued form of labor. Being with nature finally became a way of life.

This institutional design was not just about money. Coexistence with nature did not end with a philosophy, but was incorporated into the system. Here was a philosophy that reconnected policies that had once been dichotomous between nature and economy to nature and economy.

What about us? In Japan, the mountainous areas are aging and the number of marginalized communities is increasing. Is living with nature a distant ideal? Or is it a future that is close at hand if we change the form of the system? This question from a European village still prompts answers to Japan's agricultural policy.