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Agency against other central ministries (Hesse 1999; Kitagawa and Amano 1994;
Morishita Kaoru 1998, 1999).
Both at local and at national level, as well as among planners, academics and
community leaders, there has been a move away from the harsh surfaces of the
technocratic approach to river landscaping and a search for a new idiom. At the
central level, the Ministry of Construction, under whose aegis fall most issues
involving rivers, initiated a profound shift in its policy. It would direct its energy no
longer to the elimination of flooding but rather to the minimisation of damage from
flooding. Principal among the measures called for were the securing of water
retention areas and retarding basins (Kiya
et al.
1992:148; kuma 1988: 236). A
whole new concept of 'comprehensive river planning' was introduced, and some
level of citizen participation was mandated in the 1997 revision of the New River
Law. Planners have been influenced by developments elsewhere in the world. New
methods of river planning pioneered in Germany and Switzerland, known as
Naturnaher Wasserbau,
have been studied and, increasingly, implemented (Larsen
1996). The national five-year river plan stipulates the use of materials other than
concrete in new riparian work. In approximate imitation of its German counterpart,
the whole movement is known as
tashizen-gata kawa-zukuri
(literally, multi-nature-
style river planning).
Two organisations affiliated to the Ministry of Construction have been set up to
propagate best practice through publications and to fund a limited number of
experiments. As a result, several guides have been published in recent years. The
underlying theme throughout these works is the creation of a landscape that helps
animal life and local ecosystems. Before and after photographs show best use of ox-
bow ponds, meanders, inlets and other sinuous and irregular shapes for rivers. They
explain how to build irregularities into the design of river beds to create eddies and
shallows. They demonstrate techniques of restoring natural slopes to banks, where
possible using traditional methods such as
jakago,
or gabions, rock-filled bamboo
baskets. Ecologists and biologists have been active in these projects, giving advice on
a host of issues such as the best types of banks and beds for fish and invertebrates
and the best place for fish ladders. A rich literature exists, much of it written in an
unashamedly pedagogical style, describing the preferred habitats of fish and of
insects and water invertebrates and their larvae. The discourse within which these
activities are placed is an essentialising one. 'Multi-nature-style river planning',
according to a recent official publication, 'protects Japanese culture' (Ribaafuronto
1996:14).
New ecologies and new orientalisms
Not only in Japan but in other rich countries too, river restoration is now an
important part of planning objectives and a central element in a much broader
discourse involving human responsibilities to nature, human interactions with
nature, and their impact on life both human and non-human (Adams 1997;
Newson 1997). That rivers should be the centre-piece for a new discourse of the
