AMA TOWN, Japan — Ama Town on Nakanoshima Island, located about 60 kilometres off the western coast of Japan’s main island, is the epitome of resilience. Faced with the very real possibility of disappearing, the community has fought the trend of terminal decline with inventive strategies, sound management, and most important to them, a sense of community.

Now pushed on by the slogan Nai Mono wa Nai, Ama potentially lights the route forward for those facing the similar challenges of an ageing population, low birth-rate, and urban drift.

“We have an aggressive strategy for survival centred on our core industries: agriculture, fishing, and now tourism through brand Ama Town,” Mayor Kazuhiko Oe told participants of the 2024 Association for Promotion of International Cooperation Japan Journalism Fellowship, at the Ama Town Hall, on October 2.

Since World War II, the town’s populace had been on a steady decline, plunging by an alarming two-thirds to 2,374 persons in 2010. This fall was attributed to a 41.2 per cent ageing population rate and a significant portion of Ama Town high school graduates moving off the island. Both issues posed various challenges for the community, including creating a small tax base from which the municipality could draw on for revenue.

Mayor Kazuhiko Oe, of Ama Town

Rather than die out like many small Japanese towns, Ama credits its current upward trajectory to the administration of its late former mayor, Michio Yamauchi. A native of the island, he took office in May of 2002 and set his hometown on a path to success, beginning with self-sacrifice. Reducing his own salary, and those of his administration, by up to 50 per cent, he then increased services to the elderly and incentives to young families, including wedding gift and childbirth cash. By 2005 the administration had recovered approximately 200 million yen (J$ 212.7 million).

Having opted not to merge with the two other municipalities around it, Nishinoshima Town and Chiba Village, Ama forged forward with innovation across its core strengths and out-of-the-box thinking. It turned to its agriculture and finishing industries to lead the charge of brand AMA Town, with Turban shell curry, oysters, and beef to name a few. Special processes were devised to keep produce fresh for delivery anywhere, maximizing profit and quality simultaneously.

“We are now looking into wine,” said Kazuhiko Oe, the current mayor.

However, like former Mayor Yamauchi, Ama’s real story lies with its warm, generous, open-minded people. They have embraced outsiders in the form of entrepreneur Masaya Miyazaki, and Howard Rice.

Miyazaki operates Tajimaya, a dried sea cucumber plant directed at keeping the local fishing industry sustainable and viable. Rice, an American, lives on the island using his boat- building skills to not only rebuild Ama’s history, but to create a new generation able and capable of facing the challenges ahead of them. A similar theme can be found in Ama’s progressive bent towards education. Having brought back the local high school from the brink of closure, a project based learning initiative alongside the traditional knowledge mechanisms was implemented.

Masaya Miyazaki, president — Tajimaya, shows off the sea cucumber which his company purchases from local fishermen and processes for distribution.

Oe points to data showing that the crisis the town once faced as a community has passed, with revenue consistently above the local minimums, a reversal of the population decline, and full classrooms.

“People have come to our town to study our transformation,” he said.

Oe is the first to admit that challenges, old and new, are ever present, but the town is ready to tackle them.

“Ten years ago we launched Ashita no Ama wo Tsukuru Kai,” he said. This organisation, which brings together people from the private and public sectors, has a weighty mission: to create the future of Ama.