[U-06] From outreach to knowledge co-creation: Advancing inclusive community engagement in Geoscience

[U06-04] Inclusive outreach design from the multidisciplinary research projects for the Underground Built Heritage “Taya Cave”

★Invited Papers

*Yasuhiko TAMURA¹, Yuichi S. Hayakawa², Masashi Morita³, Chiaki T. Oguchi⁴, Keisuke Ogata⁵, Takuro Ogura⁶ (1.The Executive Committee for the Preservation of TAYA CAVERN , 2.Faculty of Environmental Earth Science, Hokkaido University, 3.Faculty of Urban Innovation, Division of Urban Innovation, Yokohama National University, 4.Graduate School of Science and Engineering, Saitama University, 5.Department of Cultural Property, School of Literature, Tsurumi University, 6.Graduate School of Education, Hyogo University of Teacher Education)

Keywords:Taya Cave, Natural Science, Suburban Rural Area, Inclusive outreach, Community, Sustainability

While the world population is increasing, developed countries, especially in Japan, are amid a falling birthrate and super aging society and shrinking population. The United Nations has designated cities with a population over 10 million as "megacities" and has warned about the various urban problems since the end of the 20th century. Tokyo is one of the world's largest Megacities and continues to expand. In order to sustain cities with huge population concentrations, it is important to provide energy to feed the population. In particular, water and food energy supply are a global great urgent issue. When considering cities, it is important to consider rural areas where food and water can be procured at the same time. At this time, suburban rural areas, which are the boundary between urban and rural areas, are easily included into the city because of the mixture of urban and rural cultures. Therefore, it is difficult to sustain suburban rural area. Accordingly, it can be said that the urbanization of suburban rural areas would lead to the unstoppable Sproles of the city. On the other hand, when considering the sustainability of agriculture in Japan, it must be said that the farmers are becoming old and it will be difficult to sustain agriculture in the future from the viewpoint of human resources. Under these situations, we believe that various actions regarding the sustainability of suburban rural areas are essential for the sustainability of the Japanese cities. In such cases, it is imperative that the suburban rural areas have strong regional power. For this purpose, it is important to keep to reconsider the regional original contents and to foster Civic Pride among the people who will sustain all.
The town of Taya-cho, Sakae-ku, located in the southern part of Yokohama City, is one of the suburban rural areas in Japan. This area has an unparalleled Underground Built Heritage (UBH), the " Taya Cave". Taya Cave is located under the small mountain at the precincts of Josenji Temple. It has a total length of 570 m, a three-story structure, 11 domed spaces, and over 200 reliefs carved on the cave walls and ceiling. This UBH can be considered a good local content that will lead to strong local resources in Taya area. The authors have been conducting several activities, including multidisciplinary researches for the conservation and utilization of this cave since 2017.
The conservation activities of Taya Cave are carried out based on 3 axes.
Axis 1 is a multidisciplinary basic survey to understand this cave. In this basic survey, the team collects basic data and 3D spatial information on geology, topography, geography, environment, and spatial structure inside and outside of the cave, focusing on the natural science necessary to make conservation plans. From the result of surveys, it is important to conserve the Satoyama above this UBH.
Axis 2 is inclusive regional design. Many satoyama in suburban rural areas are neglected. The neglected satoyama problem can be caused by three main issues: aging landowners and lack of successors, high maintenance costs, and various tax obligations. The satoyama above this cave has several landowners, and it is practically impossible to ask them to maintain their satoyama for conservation of this cave. For satoyama conservation, it needs to consider the benefits to the region as a whole, and to consider an inclusive regional design.
Axis 3 is the development of people for the next generation. The authors are conducting collaborative classes between researchers and neighboring primary school for the development of human resources. We are also working with welfare facilities for the disabled to create an inclusive community by making original handmade products from the satoyama in Taya area.
This presentation is an overview of an inclusive community design collaborated with researchers on Taya cave preservation activities, primary school pupils, and the disabled.