Cutting-Edge Research
in Kyoto University

HUM ECOSYST

The Kozagawa Project A First Step for Global Restoration.

Ichimaiiwa (monolithic rock formation) in Koza River

The earth is composed of three ecosystems: wild, cultural, and pseudocultural. The wild ecosystem originated at the time of the big bang, the cultural ecosystem evolved from the wild ecosystem with human intervention, and the pseudo-cultural ecosystem rapidly appeared in an unsustainable manner collisions and fusions of cultures between polytopic civilizations. In modern and early modern Japan, some regions have been blessed with, or suffered chaotically from, various elements of man-made ecosystems. As a result, wild and cultural ecosystems have dwindled and become vulnerable, while pseudo-cultural ecosystems have been expanding and causing harm. I have launched a voluntary project, the Kozagawa Project, comprising members from the townsmen, government, industrial, and academic sectors. The project adopts as its symbol a monolithic rock formation in the Koza River, a natural national treasure. The Kozagawa Project is a 50-year field program which regards the southern Kii Peninsula as a model region for applied anthropology, and aims to restore all aspects of the region’s wild, cultural and pseudo-cultural ecosystems to well-balanced dynamic phases using the wisdom of cosmology regarding the interactions of the four fundamental forces (gravitational, electromagnetic, strong nuclear, and weak nuclear). The project began in 2004, and its first stage will last until the middle of the 2050s. The data and folklore knowledge collected in this project have been documented in The Report of the Kozagawa Project’s Combined Forces: FSERC/ KOPCOM, 1-10

Shinya Umemoto, PhD
Director and Associate Professor, Kii-Oshima Research Station, FSERC