Tokyo suburban residential garden designated as national biodiversity site

TOKYO – A private garden in the suburban Tokyo town of Nishitokyo has been designated as a protected area in a national strategy to preserve biodiversity.

The approximately 200 square meter “O’s Garden” is tended by 59-year-old Ienobu Otabe, whose last initial led to the garden’s name. His home garden was one of the 122 certified sites in the first half of fiscal 2023 among candidates from municipalities, businesses and other organizations in 35 prefectures.

The national government has set a goal of making Japan “nature positive”, halting and reversing the loss of biodiversity by 2030. Part of this strategy is the designation “Other effective area-based conservation measures (OECM)” for green spaces created by private individuals. businesses, local governments and others.

After the applications, the experts judge the candidate sites based on criteria such as the presence of rare species or if the space is managed all year round. The certification period is five years. The total area of ​​the 122 newly designated OECMs is about 77,000 hectares, larger than Tokyo’s 23 special wards.

According to the Ministry of the Environment, most of the applications of the OECM site are from organizations, and nature preservation measures are rarely undertaken by individuals.

The phrase “wildlife” is posted at the entrance and exit to the Otabe garden. “I think it is important to do things in a light and unpretentious way. There is no pleasure in gardening just for the preservation of nature,” said the gardener. “I am happy that the garden that I created with joy has been certified.”

Otabe’s garden has been especially praised for providing a habitat for species with populations at risk of local extinction in metropolitan Tokyo, such as Japanese brown frogs, Japanese common toads, and “kanahebi” grass lizards. A spacious lawn and 40 to 50 plant species including lemons and olives are spread around two ponds. There is also a wooden house built by Otabe and his wife, where the gardener says he enjoys coffee and studying the garden’s creatures.

After living in the nearby town of Musashino for 11 years, Otabe returned to Nishitokyo, his hometown, to care for his elderly father. The following year, he underwent treatment after a tumor was discovered in his brain. Unable to recover his health and at his wife’s urging due to stress concerns, Otabe quit his job of about 30 years at a scientific and chemical equipment company.

After the death of his father at the age of 87 in 2021, Otabe took up gardening with the aim of trying to live freely. He came up with the concept of a “garden with the presence of the ocean” since his health condition had left him unable to continue his more than 30-year hobby of underwater photography. He planted palm trees and bananas, with white gravel around the ponds in the garden.

Eight months after starting work, Otabe was very impressed by a project of master gardener Kate Bradbury that he saw on TV. Rather than a well-constructed, neat and​​​​​​​​clean garden, he focused on nature conservation through features such as clay pipes for hedgehogs to pass through easily and piles of rocks for frogs to hide in.

One of the ponds in the garden has existed since Otabe was a child. Japanese brown frogs were caught elsewhere and then released here, and have continued to thrive ever since. Wanting to recreate the original landscape where he encountered many species such as grasshoppers and young dragonflies, Otabe reached out to the British Embassy in Tokyo and on social media to ask Bradbury to learn ways to create a wildlife-friendly garden.

One change was to plant low trees that provide a lush cover of leaves on the ground. Using plastic parts, the water depth of the pond was maintained at 50 centimeters, creating an environment that allows frogs to hide and species to hibernate in the winter. Wanting to welcome the butterflies, Otabe planted flowers that produce nectar to their taste.

Otabe is also careful to avoid the use of herbicides and other chemicals. Although the ponds attract mosquitoes, the Oryzias rice fish in the pond feed on the insect larvae. Remove plant-chewing aphids by hand. The grasshopper population is kept in check by a species of mantis. Measures like these maintain the natural environment.

Every morning, Otabe wakes up at 5 am, feeds the rice fish in the ponds, makes breakfast for his family and sends his children to school. From 9 o’clock, his attention in the garden. He is happy to see his neighbors enjoy seeing the flowers and creatures of O’s Garden.

(Original Japanese by Reiko Noguchi, Digital News Group)

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