| Social capital constitutes the cultural component of modern societies. Building social capital has typically been seen as a task for ‘second generation’ economic reform, but unlike economic policies and institutions, social capital is not created or shaped by public policy but is inherited throughout local communities successive generations. Enhancing social capital therefore is about promoting local knowledge deeply rooted into local communities’ practices on land and at sea. In Japan, the culturally specific interaction of humans with nature has led to the emergence of specific socio-ecosystems called ‘satoyama’ on the land side and ‘satoumi’ on the coast and sea side. Here, characteristics of related local knowledge include information about consumed... |
