Natureに記載されたレジリアンスに関するコメント記事の補足です。
当初は、長い記事の記載を試みたのですが、編集部とのやり取りの結果、Correspondance欄での掲載となりました。Natureでは、Correspondanceは、過去最近にNatureに記載された論文へのコメントの形で載るようですが、なぜか今回は、Natureに記載の論文や記事の引用なしでの掲載となりました。また、投稿規定では350wordsまでとなっていますが、最終的に210words程になってしまいました。
編集の過程での諸々の事情により、言いたいことがかなり凝縮されています。あまりに唐突の記事で、何について言及しているのか分かりにくいとの連絡も受けました。よって、当初の原稿をここに記しておきたいと思います。
要は、Natureに記載されたニュース記事で、撹乱に対するさらなる"Engineering control"により災害を抑制しようというような記載があったことに対するコメントを送ったのです。日本では、最近は「減災」という言葉も聞こえるようになりましたが、やはり「防災」しようという傾向が強いと思います。人為災害を未然に防ぐことはもちろん必要ですが、自然災害を完全になくすことは不可能であり、時にそのような試みはさらなる災害をもたらすことがあることを述べました。自然をコントロールすることは不可能なので、それよりは社会に突然の破壊的なイベントをもたらす自然と向き合うことを考えようといったニュアンスが伝わればと思います。
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Nature News Feature 'Japan faces up to failure of its earthquake preparations' (Nature 471, 556-55; 2011) suggests the importance of further engineering control of nature, such as creation of artificial coastlines to prevent tsunami attacks (1). The devastation by the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami was undoubtedly a disaster for society. This may cause the public to consider that all natural events, which surprise society, are "bad" for society. However, infrequent catastrophic events, such as tsunami, wildfire, flooding, volcanic eruption, and so on, are inevitable in nature. Although the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami resulted in a massive loss of life, as well as the destruction of homes and infrastructure, this played an important role in restoring beach environments that provide nesting habitats for several threatened sea turtle species (2). This indicates that natural events, while being socially disastrous, may have some (mostly unknown) positive impacts on ecosystems, especially for systems whose resilience has been largely eroded by a number of human activities. Here, my intention is not to focus on their unknown restoration effects. I am concerned that natural disturbances are not appropriately regarded by the society and governmental policy, which may lead to further unforeseen disasters.
Past failures of attempts to control nature can be seen in many places in the world. For instance, flood control, which has been extensively conducted throughout Japan, has caused many environmental problems. Recently, Opperman et al. (3) proposed that, compared to using traditional flood-control infrastructures, large-scale reconnection of floodplains will be much less vulnerable to flood damage, and therefore less likely to require the magnitude of disaster relief payments. This flood-resilient land use would also increase various ecosystem services (3). Humans are a part of ecosystems, which means that the ability of ecosystems to absorb natural disturbances and the ability of society to resist and recover from natural disasters are not exclusive, but rather have some similarity in terms of adaptation to surprise. History shows that social-ecological systems resilient to hazards are less devastated by natural events (4). Adger et al. (4) indicated that human action could determine the consequences of social devastation during and following natural disasters. During recovery from the devastation in Tohoku Region, I suggest that the Japanese government should start to think about how society can live with changes caused by natural events (so-called as resilience thinking (5)), rather than just only try to surpass and eliminate them.
1. Cyranoski, D. Nature 471, 556-557 (2011).
2. Lindenmayer, D. B. & Tambiah, C. R. Conserv. Biol. 19, 991 (2005).
3. Opperman, J. J. et al. Science 326, 1487-1488 (2009).
4. Adger, W. N. et al. Science 309, 1036-1039 (2005).
5. Walker, B. & Salt, D. Resilience Thinking (Island Press,
By Akira S Mori
Graduate School of Environment and Information Sciences, Yokohama National University, 79-7 Tokiwadai, Hodogaya, Yokohama 240-8501, Japan / Biogeoscience Institute, BioScience 186, University of Calgary, 2500 University Dr NW, Calgary, Alberta, T2N 1N4 Canada. E-mail: akkym＠kb3.so-net.ne.jp
