Hokkaido, Spring 2007--A Picture of Rebirth on the Margins of Wind and Earth

Hokkaido, Spring 2007--A Picture of Rebirth on the Margins of Wind and Earth

In the spring of 2007, a new life was quietly sprouting in the wilderness of Hokkaido. Due to the reduction of public works projects, the construction industry had lost both its work and pride, and heavy machinery and labor were floating in the air. However, agriculture and wind power generation are beginning to fill the void. Farmers, who were finding it difficult to cultivate their land due to aging and lack of successors, lamented that they had land but no hands, and construction companies responded that they had hands but no use for them.

The construction companies responded, "We have hands, but we don't know how to use them." From clearing the land, making ridges, and building irrigation channels to harvesting and shipping. This collaboration, which could be called the "outsourcing" of farming, was not a coincidence. As the local economy sank, the resources and skills that remained in the region were brought together. It is also a story of small-scale self-reliance, in which those who have lost their jobs find other roles in the same land.

Meanwhile, wind power, a symbol of renewable energy, is also taking advantage of the winds blowing across the vast plateau. 2007 saw the construction of one of the largest windmill complexes in the country, financed through a syndicate of local banks and credit unions. The construction company was given the role of "rooting the wind in the soil" by taking charge of the foundation work and power transmission infrastructure.

At the time, the Kyoto Protocol was about to be implemented, and the whole of Japan was facing the reality of global warming countermeasures. This landscape in Hokkaido was not just a countermeasure, but a will to reweave new values from the loss of the past. The people who put their hope in both the wind and the soil were a quiet poem in the name of rebirth.