Study trip to Nagano!(2nd)
After having a lecture from Zaigo, we left Shinano-machi for Omachi city (100km away and it’s just a part of Nagano’s northern area. such a big country!)
In Omachi city, there are also NPOs who are trying to cheer up their loving town.
We visited NPO Grutta Network Omachi this time.
They used be some separated community groups, then all those groups gathered as one NPO commune.
Their main jobs are;
*Fiding out local resources and using them
Their big main tourism spot is “Kurobe dam” which has highest dam height.
Dam itself is known well as sightseeing place. So NPO members made a leaflet which is focused on people who built this huge dam.
Outdoor space “Wappa land” is opened community space which can do BBQ, nature hiking and so on. All nature resources are condensed in one place, children can play and study with their flexible way of thinking.
*Planning and managing loco tours
They experimented managing variety of loco tours like “night hiking”, “snow hiking”, “nature forest tour”. Visitors don’t get bored by taking these kinds of short tour, it’s even a good chance to know this area in different way of view.
“By introducing this town in these ways, we’d like people to be interested in and to move in this town in the future.” Mr. Sato, chairman of this NPO( he is a dentist of this town) said.
Final study is held at Omachi city office.
Omachi city office has been working on depopulation for years, they visited Isumi city as a study trip before.
As my point of view, problems and tasks which need to solve are same with us.
There is a limit that administration by itself can do, same thing can be said citizens by themselves.
We need to find the way to cooperate each other sometimes.
It’s a ‘part of study’, I have to write about their proud of “Kurobe dam”.
As a final stopping by, we went to that huge dam.
The place is of course originally for making electricity, but now it’s also famous for sightseeing.
Everything is systemized for visitors, we enjoyed seeing this dam safely.
It was interesting to know the history building this huge concrete edifice.
It was really good trip that we got to know other towns way of working on depopulation problem.
Nagano has beautiful nature resources that attract people in city side.
We Isumi city also has rich ocean, country rice field view and yummy loco food.
we will surely make an effort based on this experiment of study.
(Aiko)
