Circular economy and post-disaster recovery: Evolving story of Minami Sanriku

The most inspiring academic conference I’ve attended was the “Scientific Society for the Life Circling Town of Minami-Sanriku” in Miyagi Prefecture on November 23, 2023. I joined 120 participants, a mix of researchers from various disciplines, and local residents in Minami-Sanriku.

The 2011 Great Eastern Japan earthquake/tsunami had killed 830 of its 17,666 population and destroyed 60% of its infrastructure. Surrounded by stunning coastlines zigzagged with bays and coves and forests extending from hills to water edges, Minami-Sanriku has developed and implemented its own vision for post-disaster recovery, which is to thrive with nature, based on the circular economy/society framework.

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Circular economy through disaster recovery

The Minami-Sanriku model has caught the attention of scholars studying biodiversity, socioeconomic analysis and policy evaluation, among others. At the conference, Professor Takehito Yoshida of the University of Tokyo’s Graduate School of Agriculture and Life Sciences and Professor Sawako Shigeto of the Graduate School of Project Design introduced ongoing research involving a number of initiatives undertaken in and by the town of Minami-Sanriku.

In 2013, merely two years after the earthquake/tsunami, Minami-Sanriku launched the Biomass Industrial City concept. The city established a system to collect compostable waste, turning it into biogas for local energy generation/consumption and utilizing the remaining liquid as natural fertilizer for farms and rice fields.

In 2015, Minami-Sanriku obtained the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification for the sustainable management of its forests. Additionally, it rebuilt the town’s municipal offices entirely of FSC-certified materials in 2017, unprecedented for public edifice at that time.

In 2018, Minami-Sanriku also acquired Japan’s first certification by the Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) for its oyster farming, while at the same registering its Shizugawa Bay under the Ramsar Convention, or the Convention on Wetlands, for the international protection of biodiversity.

Nature positivity: Revitalizing the local economy

“Regional economies have the potential to provide a more rewarding lifestyle than consumeristic urban areas if they can manage the circulation of local capital,” argues Professor Shigeto. The next step in Minami-Sanriku is to articulate a mutually enforcing relationship between nature-based capital and the local economy. One such tool will be the Geospatial Information System (GIS) technology, used to create a map that synthesizes relevant information for local residents.

In the keynote speech, Koh Fujiyama, President of Sustainable Community Research Institute, shared similar examples of designing a GIS database to visualize the current status of farmland usage and sustainability in Akita Prefecture. The aim is to simulate population trajectories and identify effective policy interventions.

Scholars from the northeastern region, including Professor Michio Kondo of Tohoku University’s Graduate School of Life Sciences, argue further for Minami-Sanriku to be “Nature Positive,” which goes beyond being carbon neutral to achieve a surplus in ecological footprint. For example, Professor Masazumi Nishikawa of Miyagi University explores “blue carbon,” or carbon absorption through Minami Sanriku’s marshes and seagrasses, and the trading of the blue carbon credit to reinvest in its sea urchin industry.

“We are witnessing a paradigm shift from ‘growth’ to ‘circulation,’ from ‘competition’ to ‘coexistence,’ and from ‘private ownership’ to ‘shared ownership.’ The guiding principle in reformulating our civilizations, to be circulative, is being ‘small-scaled, decentralized and localized.’ We will then need a strategy to reconnect our societies, economies and environments horizontally to ‘recreate the world of communities.’” – Koh Fujiyama (President of Sustainable Community Research Institute)

Towards the new system of sustainability

Minami-Sanriku stands out in achieving post-disaster recovery through the circular economy model – but how did it happen? Akihiro Dazai, who engineered Minami-Sanriku’s Biomass Industrial City proposal, recalls that the town had been exploring nature-based community revitalization long before the earthquake/tsunami disaster hit.

In 1999, the town revamped its Shizugawa Nature Center as a hub to study marine biodiversity, open to all ages. This evolved into an “eco college” concept in 2000, as the Center began to accommodate a small number of post-doctoral researchers with municipality funding.

The 2011 tsunami washed away all research materials and samples. Still, the natural history museums and foundations around the country began to visit Minami-Sanriku to recover the lost data, with the Nature Center serving as the focal point. Dazai had transferred from the Nature Center to the Minami-Sanriku’s municipal office immediately after the 2011 destruction.

It was a natural evolution for the concept of sustainability-driven community rehabilitation to emerge, says Taichi Sato, President of the Scientific Society, who has a Ph.D. in Physical Science (specializing in cosmic radiation). Sato, now running a forestry business in Minami-Sanriku and leading FSC-related efforts, notes, “We already had the network of key people and intellectual infrastructure in and around the public sector, reaching out to the community.”

The conference was a testament to it, attended by local farmers, fishermen and agribusiness entrepreneurs ranging from transport companies ferrying biogas and natural fertilizers to winemakers growing and processing vines within the locality.

This trilateral partnership involving the municipal government, the Nature Center and local businesses and residents has therefore been supported by the wider research community, which makes Minami-Sanriku one of a kind. Now these local leaders are discussing the possibility of opening a community college for dedicated study on circular economy.

Circular economy building resilient communities

Sustainability has become a common objective in many cities to encourage waste and carbon reduction. So has disaster preparedness, in light of ever more frequent floods, heat waves and wildfires. If we can combine these goals that are inherently interlinked and establish a system that connects people and assets involved in them, communities will have a consistent and integrated mechanism to prevent, respond to, and recover from disasters. Minami-Sanriku can offer a model for such an innovative, and high-demand, process design.