Humans Are Part of Nature
A sustainable future begins by remembering that human life exists within nature, never apart from it.
Drawing on half a century of work in agriculture, environmental restoration, and community education, Juichi Shibusawa asks what changes when we stop treating nature as something outside ourselves. The book moves from forests and rural knowledge to work, happiness, and the responsibilities we carry toward those who will live after us. It brings together words passed down from those who came before, gathered through his travels to communities far and wide.
Living within cycles
Forest communities once read the land through long spans of time. Water, soil, trees, food, and human labour belonged to one continuing cycle: people could use what nature renewed, but not exhaust the living foundation itself. Shibusawa follows this practical knowledge from his early encounters with rural Japan through environmental work in Asia and South America. The result is not nostalgia for an untouched past, but a way of seeing limits, renewal, and care as the basis of everyday life.
Work, community, and happiness
The book distinguishes earning an income from the wider work that allows a place to endure. Maintaining a forest, passing on skills, gathering for a festival, or caring for neighbours may not be fully measured by money, yet these acts connect generations and make a community resilient. Against a culture that values constant activity and numerical growth, Shibusawa proposes a richer measure of happiness—one grounded in relationship, shared responsibility, and the freedom simply to be.
Book purchases
¥1,980
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office.juichishibusawa@rootsnroutes.jp