Living with Wild Geese: Kurechi Masayuki / President, Japanese Association for Wild Geese Protection

"Direct Talk"

Our guest today is Kurechi Masayuki,

president of the Japanese Association for Wild Geese Protection.

In 2022,

he received the Ramsar Convention Award for Wetland Wise Use,

which recognizes contributions to long-term wetland conservation efforts.

Kurechi was recognized for his commitment to the conservation of migratory birds

that live and breed in wetlands,

which has helped to restore endangered bird species.

He was also commended for his contribution to reconciling agriculture

with sustainable wetland practices.

Kurechi tells us about his impressive 50-year journey.

This was two or three years after starting university,

so 1971 or 1972.

I had two or three friends who were into birding,

and they suggested we go to Izunuma in Miyagi to see the wild geese.

We were looking for the marsh where the geese were supposed to be,

but we were lost, wandering around.

Then, all of a sudden, in the rice paddies, we saw a whole gaggle of geese.

We took a step towards them,

and then the tension suddenly snapped.

The flock took off in an instant, and flew up and away.

The fact is, when the birds took off like that,

that was the most…

what should I say? The most decisive moment.

This huge number of birds filling up the sky.

Everything is filled up by the sound of wings beating and birds crying.

And you're totally surrounded, on all sides.

Seeing these birds just cover everything.

That experience back then

was the beginning of how I became involved in various activities

that aimed to serve the geese.

One of Kurechi's greatest achievements

was bringing the Aleutian cackling goose

back from the brink in Japan.

The flock over there is all cackling geese.

Fifty years ago,

only a few Aleutian cackling geese still wintered in Japan.

They were being driven towards extinction by foxes,

which had been released by people hoping to harvest their fur.

We started talking about how we might try to revive the species in Japan.

But at first, although we knew we wanted to do it,

we weren't quite sure how to go about it.

It was just a desire we felt, nothing more.

So when we consulted other people, they said, "There's no way."

Kurechi and his friends learned of efforts in the United States

to breed cackling geese.

The US provided some of these geese to the Japanese team,

who set about increasing the population in Japan.

In the wild, Aleutian cackling geese breed in the Kuril Islands each summer,

and then migrate to the Japanese mainland for the winter.

So Kurechi formed a working relationship with Russian researchers,

and they released the geese on an island in the Kurils

uninhabited by people or foxes.

Twelve years later…

Cackling geese!

A flock of Aleutian cackling geese was sighted in Japan.

Currently, about 10,000 birds make the migration.

It's absolutely amazing.

These birds had never done the migration before.

It seemed their fate had been sealed, but they found a way.

The truth is it makes me feel incredibly grateful for the work of these geese.

We faced all sorts of challenges.

But there are people willing to help our cause across borders.

We've gained so much strength from supporting each other.

That's definitely the motivating force that's kept me going.

As he worked on the recovery of the Aleutian cackling goose,

Kurechi was also involved in the conservation of the natural habitats

that waterfowl call home.

Geese are a type of waterfowl.

They need two things, shelter and food.

At night, they need a safe place to rest at the waterside.

A roost.

Geese are extremely wary animals,

so their favorite spots are open, shallow marshes.

Then, at sunrise, they fly out of the marshes into the surrounding farmland.

If there are rice paddies, they'll eat the remnants of the rice harvest,

the grass on the paddy ridges.

They live by eating what's around.

The biggest environmental issue facing these geese today

is that the wetlands they can use for roosting have decreased dramatically.

In the past hundred years, Japan has lost 61% of its wetlands.

As the Japanese economy grew and the country developed,

geese lost more and more of their natural habitat.

Nowadays, roughly 90% of the geese that winter in Japan

do so in the wetlands of Miyagi Prefecture.

Overconcentration of bird populations has become a serious concern.

It's really dangerous if they're only in one place.

What if the water there gets contaminated, for example?

Then it won't matter how many birds are in that marsh.

They'll all die off.

To address this issue,

the Japanese Association for Wild Geese Protection which Kurechi leads,

proposed spreading the geese out over surrounding areas.

However, this idea was opposed by farmers.

Geese would eat rice left out to dry in the fields after harvesting,

so the farmers considered them pests.

The farmers really thought of the geese as their enemy.

I tried to talk to them about helping these birds,

but they didn't want to listen at all.

It was an extremely important part of our plan,

but a difficult one.

Kurechi eventually won the cooperation of some farmers,

and they started a "winter flooding" initiative.

By filling their paddies with water in winter,

they gave the geese more locations to roost.

A rice paddy is farmland, and essentially it's a place to grow rice,

which is a wetland plant.

That's why you have water in the paddies.

Paddies function like wetlands,

which makes them different from most other farmland.

Moreover, rice is grown in the summer.

When the geese migrate for the winter,

the land is not being used.

During this time, rice paddies are usually left to dry out.

But we thought that if we filled them up with water,

we could create a new environment for geese to roost.

So we went forward with that initiative.

And the waterfowl did come.

The farmers saw that these waterbirds had chosen their land to roost in,

and it brought them a lot of joy, and a lot of pride.

But this itself didn't actually benefit their land.

We had to show that the birds offered real benefits for the farms.

Kurechi and his team conducted studies to see

what sorts of effects the winter flooding had on the farmland.

They discovered it benefitted the farms in concrete ways.

The number of frogs, spiders, and other creatures that eat pests increased.

Before, farmers had to use pesticides and agrochemicals to control pests.

Now they could rely on these creatures to do pest control.

All of this meant less of an impact on the natural environment,

and rice that was safer to eat.

This was good for the farmers.

Now some people are adopting this "winter flooding" as a new agricultural method.

It's sustainable farming, with low environmental impact,

that draws on the power of nature.

Farmers like that.

The geese had chosen these rice paddies as their home,

and that unique story was a great way to brand the rice.

Farmers were now able to charge a higher price for this premium product

thanks to the geese.

The end result was that,

whereas many farmers used to think of these geese as pests,

nowadays that's totally changed.

They now see geese as useful resources in their agriculture.

Due to these efforts,

in 2005 Miyagi Prefecture's Kabukuri-numa Marsh

and the surrounding rice paddies were registered under the Ramsar Convention.

It was the first Ramsar site to include paddy fields.

Kurechi's organization and these local communities

showed the world that rice paddies were not just farmland.

They could serve as wetland habitats for creatures who needed them.

Rice paddies, long a part of Asian culture,

bring value that Kurechi believes can be shared with people around the world.

When you actually go to these farms and have a look,

some people catch fish from the rice paddies they farm,

or they use water grasses to their advantage.

Make use of local resources, make that part of your lifestyle.

That philosophy still exists today.

I think these sorts of ideas will be extremely useful for thinking about the future.

That's something I feel quite strongly, I must say.

Basically, our current industrial agriculture looks efficient and productive,

but I don't think it can last another 30 years.

Soil fertility keeps declining,

as do the number of microorganisms in that soil.

But if instead, we leverage the power of life,

the land will not wither. In fact, it will thrive.

And there won't be any bad impacts on the environment.

If we do things that way, we can keep it up for a hundred years,

for a thousand years.

Doesn't matter how long.

Kurechi is embarking on a new project that involves the next generation.

You can hear them. Those are all cackling geese.

Here he's leading a high school field trip.

The students have come to see the Aleutian cackling goose.

They live in a town 50 kilometers away,

where Aleutian cackling goose migration stopped about 90 years ago.

Kurechi has started work to bring a flock of these geese back to the town.

This is the first time I've seen them.

They're big birds, and they look big in the sky.

We're cleaning up our local rivers.

We want lots of geese back in our town.

Remember what you saw here today.

If you want your town to look like this…

Think about how to make it happen.

Come up with a vision for the future.

I just sort of ended up getting involved with the geese.

But I think this chance meeting was a very good thing.

These birds are such intriguing creatures.

As I learned more, I came across all sorts of interesting things.

And I've had so many experiences I couldn't have had otherwise.

My hope is that more people will come to share my interest in these birds,

and they're the ones who will keep things going in the future.

Going forward, training the next generation

is something I need to spend a lot of effort on.

It's something I need to do, and something I want to do.

That's how I feel.

(Do you have any words to live by?)

"Drink water, think of the source."

It's a proverb. It means that when you drink water,

you should never forget where it came from.

Keep the source of the water in mind when you drink it.

Our work, especially with the Aleutian cackling goose,

was supported by a lot of people in a lot of different places.

They were the reason we finally made it to the finish line.

Once we've accomplished something,

we tend to forget the path that got us there,

but I believe we must always keep it firmly in mind.

For me, that's the meaning of these words,

and it's why I always try to keep them somewhere in my head.