Sustainability, Vol. 11, Pages 454: Crises of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services in Satoyama Landscape of Japan: A Review on the Role of Management (Sustainability)

Satoyama is a Japanese term used to describe the traditional rural landscape in Japan. It has changed continuously from overuse to underuse stages under the development of economy and society, which caused the loss of both biodiversity and ecosystem services. In this paper, we summarized the interactions of biodiversity and ecosystem services affected by human management in Satoyama landscape. The results indicate: (1) the concepts of Satoyama forests and Satoyama landscape varied with researchers and their objectives. The most popular one is a mosaic landscape consisting of Satoyama (secondary) forests, rice paddies, grassland, ponds, irrigating systems, and rural settlements; (2) traditional management regimes on Satoyama landscape were the disturbing mechanisms to provide multiple ecosystem services, as well as a series of semi-natural habitats for species; (3) due to significant progress in economy and technology in Japan, the aging problems of farmers, industrialized agriculture, the import of ecosystem services and goods from international markets, and global climate changes eventually caused the simplification of crop plants, the invasion of alien species, the fragmentation of habitats, and the decreasing of ecosystem services; (4) future research should pay more attention to the complex mechanisms of biodiversity crises and ecosystem services at the landscape scale, considering pattern-process relationships.