We view the forces that shape Yaotsu through five lenses: Forest, Water, People, Things, and Heart. These are not separate elements ? they influence one another and flow in a cycle that has long sustained life in this region. Through Yaotsu experiences, we turn our attention to this cycle and explore the wisdom and relationships that have allowed people and nature to coexist with ease.
Our approach is not to consume the value of this place, but to understand it, respect it, and think about it together. That is the foundation of everything we create here.
The goal of a Yaotsu experience is not simply to learn about the region. It is to place yourself in real local settings, engage with people from many different walks of life, and reflect on your own values and perspectives. It is to feel, firsthand, the connections between environment, daily life, work, and society ? and to carry home new ways of thinking about a sustainable future.
Whether for corporate training, university fieldwork, or group learning, we design each experience flexibly to suit your goals and interests. Rather than a fixed program, we value experiences that are shaped together with the community.
Yaotsu is a town where forests cover roughly 80% of the land, and where the rhythms of forest, water, and human activity continue as part of everyday life. This is not a place built for tourism — it is a living landscape where people have worked, thought, and passed something forward to the future.
A Yaotsu experience is not about tracing ready-made answers. It is about stepping into the community, talking with people, and engaging with nature and local work — finding your own questions and taking time to think. That process itself is the experience.
Agriculture, forestry, water, food, craft, community ties. Because Yaotsu holds all of these together without separation, it offers a rare opportunity to feel — in full dimension — what sustainable living and society can actually look like.
As the “Council for Revitalizing a Town Where 80% is Mountain,” we have worked alongside local residents, businesses, and partner organizations to develop agri-tourism and community experience programs unique to Yaotsu. These efforts were recognized by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries as an outstanding example under the “Discovering NIPPON’s Rural Gems” program (11th Selection), and we were also honored with the special Agri-Tourism Award.
In June 2023, we received confirmation of funding under the FY2023 Rural Village Revitalization Grant. We are deeply grateful for this recognition, made possible entirely through the support of so many people around us.
Across FY2023 and FY2024, under the theme “Building a Framework to Make People Want to Know More About Yaotsu — Revitalizing a Town Where 80% is Mountain,” we are offering a diverse range of experiential workshops that draw on Yaotsu’s traditional mountain way of life. Our goal is to reconstruct, for the modern era, a vision of “abundant living connected to the mountains” — and in doing so, to grow a community of fans who feel the nostalgic yet fresh appeal of “life in Yaotsu, lived alongside the mountains.”
From there, we aim to build connections to expanded engagement, migration, and permanent settlement in the town.
We are establishing an agri-tourism framework that distills Yaotsu’s living culture and history into experiential workshops, brought together in immersive long-stay tours. We have also declared our commitment to Sustainable Tourism — a practice of approaching each destination with respect and care, giving something small back with every visit. Our vision is that being chosen by travelers will itself drive the conservation of Yaotsu’s mountain villages, ultimately ensuring that the natural environment of Yaotsu as a whole is sustainably maintained in good condition for generations to come.