Vanishing Wings of Japan's Periphery
A More-Than-Human Ethnography of Hokkaido and Okinawa, Focussing on Two Rare Birdspecies (Blakiston’s fish owl and Okinawa rail)
Principal Investigator: Dr Marius Palz, University of Cologne
This project analyses the ecological and cultural impact of biodiversity decline and how local people’s worldviews shape conservation measures by looking at two case studies that focus on rare bird species in Japan’s periphery. In the country’s far north (Hokkaido) and south (Okinawa) anthropogenic environmental change has been occurring on a massive scale since the end of the 19th century, affecting both human and non-human populations in these regions. Landscape development for example includes road and dam construction, deforestation and reforestation as monocultures, as well as river regulations, while the introduction of alien species and overhunting also significantly altered local ecosystems.
Two iconic bird species were especially affected by these changes and today they stand on the brink of extinction: the Blakiston’s fish owl in Hokkaido and the Okinawa rail on Okinawa Island. The two species turned out to be especially vulnerable to the afore mentioned changes, as their survival depends on specific features of the landscape they inhabit. Furthermore, both species hold special relations with humans: the Blakiston’s fish owl is venerated as a deity by the Ainu people that are recognised as the Indigenous people of northern Japan and the Okinawa rail is a symbol of Okinawa Island’s endemic biodiversity. They both count as “flagship species” in conservation and have become a significant pull factor for tourism with observatories and research centres being erected in several places. Furthermore, they both are registered as Natural Monuments by Japan’s Agency for Cultural Affairs and are protected by several legislations, yet a stabilisation of their numbers is uncertain.
Looking closer at these animals and their path towards potential extinction shows that landscape alteration, biodiversity decline, and people’s changing perception of the environment must be researched as entangled with each other and not as isolated phenomena. My project goes beyond the state of the art, as it conceptualises the threat of species extinction not just from an ecological perspective but also explores the cultural dimensions of extinction and the landscape histories that have led to the transformation of human-wildlife relations.
