Sacred Forests and Biodiversity

The May 12^th issue of Jinja Shinpō had a substantial article on sacred forests and biodiversity. Under the Convention on Biological Diversity, areas that are not formally protected can be officially recognised as “OECM” — Other Effective Area-based Conservation Measures. (The “other” seems to mean “other than protected areas”, and “area-based” has vanished from the abbreviation.) This broadly means areas in which biodiversity is protected as a side-effect of other human activities. The Japanese government has introduced laws to formalise this status in the past, and a new law covering it, the “Law concerning the promotion etc of activities to increase biological diversity in areas”, has just come into effect.

The sacred forests of jinja would seem to be a no-brainer for this. They are minimally maintained, which tends to promote biodiversity, and their religious function is to be as close to a natural forest as possible. However, in the first couple of years of the system, there were very few applications from jinja.

This was because the application process requires a full assessment of the biological diversity of the area, and its evaluation under several formal headers. A site does not have to be valuable in all respects, but it does need to clearly achieve some of them. Shinto priests do not have the time to do this, and even if they did, they do not have the qualifications.

Thus, an existing scholarly organisation, the Society for the Study of Sacred Forests, has stepped in to offer support. Two jinja had their forests recognised as “Natural Coexistence Sites” under the first law, thanks to support from the society.

One of these is Matsu-no-O Taisha, in Kyoto. Its forest covers 19.3 hectares, and met four of the criteria, including “The ecosystem is similar to a primeval one” and “The location is home to rare plants or animals, or has high potential to become home to them”. The other was Yahashira Jinja in Mië, which covers 0.9 hectares. The forest includes three-century-old cedars, and while it didn’t score for being close to primeval (I would guess it is too small), it did count for rare species, and also for providing natural resources for local traditional crafts and practices.

The society is taking three more applications forward. They were postponed from last fiscal year, because the offices were overwhelmed, and so they will be assessed under the new law. The one that the article handles in detail is Yaëgaki Jinja in Miyagi.

This is an interesting choice, because the jinja was devastated by the tsunami in 2011, and almost all of its sacred forest swept away. A handful of pine trees, all over four centuries old, survived, but otherwise the whole area was wrecked. The chief priest has been extremely active in rebuilding — she wrote a series of columns in the Komorebi series shortly after the disaster — and she arranged for the sacred forest to be replanted. The trees have now, it seems, grown to around seven metres.

If we think about it, however, a new forest is exactly the sort of thing you want under a law to promote increases in biodiversity. Existing old-growth forests are important to preserve, because you are not, in practice, going to get an overall increase if you lose too much of what is already there, but if you do not create new areas, you cannot get an increase.

It is good to see that some sacred forests have been registered and, of course, the experience of registering these will make it easier for other jinja to do so in the future. I hope they do.