Remarks from the Organization

The mandate of our organization is to preserve beautiful Landscapes of existing Satoyama and its ecosystem.

As we continue to expand the agriculture and forestry, and incorporate the idyllic lifestyle of Satoyama into our green tourism sustainably, consequently we will welcome more people who wish to settle there. This not only pushes our efforts in preserving the sceneries and ecosystem, it will lead to connecting people and the natural environment, and the cities and villages.Our ultimate ideal is a cycle of connections wherein everyone lead their own happy living while the nature is respected and protected.

Our place provides “the authentic Satoyama” with pleasing sceneries and its anchored ecosystem, not so far away from Utsunomiya.We hope that you will enjoy our activities in your own way – for a family to have a joyous time, for the elders to reminisce the good-old landscape and nature of Satoyama, or for those who have less experience in the nature to immerse themselves in its abundance.

Remarks from the Organization

Ichikai Town, located in the eastern part of Tochigi Prefecture, is one of the best breeding colonies for grey-faced buzzards in Japan,a kind of hawk observed in Satoyama. In the Village of the Grey-faced Buzzard Nature School, we have three principles: to play, to learn and to protect.

Through play, experience and learning, we aim to motivate children to learn the abundance of the nature and to cultivate a mindset for protecting Satoyama.

Many of our guests participate with their family, with pre-school children and grade school children. In our programs, you get to experience a life in the countryside as part of lifestyle, not as profession. We hope that our activities – outdoor and fire-making experience to creature hunting – will inspire you to take a small step in enjoying the life in the countryside.

We look forward to seeing you from all over Japan.

Remarks from the Organization

Ever since we started engaging in farming, we faced the situation of increasing abandoned arable lands first-hand.We felt that “it would not plausible to protect all, even if we expand our farms”.

This is why we offer our programs, so to inspire more people to get involved as a starter.

Someday, those participants will recall their experience of farming and reminisce it as a “good memory”. And they might bring their children to the country again. Moreover, we have year-round programs that people can join continuously throughout the seasons for the purpose of protecting Satoyama.

We hope that we get to create an environment wherein anyone can come in and cultivate others’ fields as their own precious field. While most of our participants are families with children,everyone is welcome here.

Remarks from the Organization

The Grey-faced Buzzard Village Life Tourism provides various programs based on visitors’ requests.

“I want to try making clothes” “I want to try making a pot from the scrach” – we receive many voices from our visitors every year and we come up with year-round programs based on them.

We work on many programs for visitors with a hope that they appreciate the culture and diverse ways of leading a life in Satoyama which everyone is encouraged to preserve together.

All visitors are welcome to enjoy and preserve unique ways of living in Satoyama.

Remarks from the Organization

Okaeri’s Hill is a sightseeing farm with blueberries as its main product.

“North Highbush Blueberries” are mainly cultivated here, and chemical components such as pesticides, fertilizers and herbicides are not used.

Here you can also feel all kinds of biological smells that are hard to reach in the metropolis.

While enjoying the nature, enjoy the delicious blueberry picking event which growing in sufficient sunlight.