Mizu to Midori to Dodento Wo Suteta Shakai No Yukue (Chukoshinsho)

[Machine Translation] In the past, the Japanese were a people who loved nature and lived in response to it. How did they come to destroy nature as they do today? This report looks back at the traces of the break with the traditional view of nature and pursues what has resulted from land use that has upset the balance between nature and human society, using specific examples such as floods, water shortages, heat pollution, and large-area clear-cutting. The warning that the productive capacity of the soil is the true resource, and that a civilization that loses it will surely perish, should not fail to prompt deep reflection on the part of the Japanese people.

かつて日本人は自然を愛し自然に対応して生きる民族だった。それがなぜ現在のように自然を破壊するようになったのか。伝統的な自然観との断絶の跡をふりかえり、自然と人間社会とのバランスを崩した土地利用が何をもたらしたかを、水害、水不足、熱公害、大面積皆伐などの具体的事例から追求する。土壌の生産力こそ真の資源であり、それを失った文明は必ず滅亡するという警告は、日本人に深い反省を促さずにはおかない。