This blog entry was created for August Japan Blogs Matsuri kindly hosted by Through Eyes From Afar blog. The main theme of the matsuri is “Japan and Nature” so I decided to show some pictures from the small Japanese islands we visited this summer. The photos were specially selected to represent how the Japanese nature reclaims its loss to human space.
All the shots are from the islands of Ogijima (男木島) and Megijima (女木島) – both around 40 and 20 minutes away with ferry from the port of Takamatsu (高松市) city (I will prepare separate blog entries for these two islands in the very near future). Both of islands are quite small (especially Ogijima just a few hundred people inhabitants) and in both of them the advances of nature are quite well visible, despite the fact that they are so close to the relatively big city of Takamatsu.
First – the pictures from Ogijima – from the periphery of the village (we walked also deeper in the island where we saw some more traces of human dwellings but they were really just a traces submerged in vegetation).
I must mention though that on both islands you can see some efforts for renovation (especially on Megijima where there are several summer houses on the beach). Moreover, both of the islands are part of the Setouchi International Art Festival. One of the reasons for the creation of the festival was an attempt to re-vitalize the island communities. The question is how long this re-invigoration will last after the festival is over.
Here are the pictures from Megijima (actually there were many more abandoned houses but not all of them were submerged in vegetation yet):
I find it quite interesting that human communities which have survived for hundreds of years (if not thousands) are under threat of disappearing from the small Japanese islands in 21st century. Or maybe there will be a new wave of re-colonization one day :)
