A Town Listening to the Voices of the Lakes: Mikatagoko Eco-museum Re-Tells the Story of Nature and the Jomon Period (1990s)

A Town Listening to the Voices of the Lakes: Mikatagoko Eco-museum Re-Tells the Story of Nature and the Jomon Period (1990s)
The Mikatagoko Eco-museum was an attempt to reconstruct the story of the five lakes in Wakasa, Fukui Prefecture, and the Jomon culture that lived along their shores. The ecosystems of each lake, where freshwater and brackish water intersect, have long attracted the attention of researchers. In the 1990s, the international trend toward valuing wetlands and lakes as ecosystem services on a global scale strengthened, and the Mikatagoko Lakes came to be highlighted again as an important wetland. Around the same time, excavation of the Torihama shell midden led to the discovery of a 10,000-year-old round wooden boat and lacquerware, which clearly demonstrated that the Jomon people had built a rich lifestyle and culture together with the wetlands. In this region, where natural history and cultural history are continuous on the same terrain, the blessings of the lake have nurtured a culture, and that culture has also given rise to perspectives that decipher the meaning of nature. Th
e eco-museum concept reweaved these relationships into a regional narrative, and created a place where the lake, the ruins, and daily life could be seen as a single museum, with residents serving as storytellers to guide visitors through the museum. These efforts later led to the registration of Mikatagoko as a Ramsar Convention wetland, and the area is recognized as a symbolic region that reconnects nature and human history.