3 Common Questions Across Three Sites

Something unusual is happening in three towns along the Seto Inland Sea.

In Iwakuni, community development cooperation team members are re-organizing rural arrangements while milling wood from the mountains. In Onomichi, a mobile surgery vehicle named “Ono Cat” is making rounds in the hilly town, steadily performing spaying and neutering on stray cats. In Kure, a restoration project worth 200 million yen has begun in the sea where about 90% of oysters died last year, aiming for shipments by spring 2026.

The themes and scales of these initiatives may seem disparate. However, when we line up these three sites, a common outline emerges—the mechanisms that can no longer function solely within the community are now being re-engaged by the hands of outsiders, and the gears are starting to turn again.

This is not a story about how “the arrival of outsiders changes the town.” The question lies a bit deeper: Under what conditions do external hands take root as a mechanism? I would like to re-examine these three cases from that perspective.

—

Iwakuni—Two Cooperation Team Members Filling the “Blank Spaces” in Arrangements

Two community development cooperation team members have arrived in the mountainous areas of Iwakuni City to support rural development and woodworking. The decline in population has left not just a shortage of labor but also a gap in the very arrangements that have sustained village life—from festival preparations to the maintenance of shared forests and the operation of processing facilities.

The task of the cooperation team members is to step into that gap. They are planning workshops that utilize the woodworking skills that remain in the region, leveraging the abundant timber resources of Iwakuni’s mountains. However, planning alone does not suffice. Arranging venues, procuring tools, and organizing announcements—these processes are being built collaboratively with local residents, leading to a rediscovery among them that their skills hold value when viewed from an external perspective.

What is noteworthy is that the cooperation team members are functioning not as “proposers” but as “collaborators in arrangements.” Behind the reported increase in participants for woodworking classes lies a repeated reallocation of mundane roles—who transports materials, who makes the calls, and who cleans up. External expertise does not take root on its own; it becomes a mechanism only when integrated into arrangements suited to local realities.

The cooperation team’s term lasts a maximum of three years. What remains after their term will depend not on individual enthusiasm but on how well these arrangements can transition into a form that can be managed solely by local residents.

—

Onomichi—What the “Ono Cat” Designed Was Not Surgery, But Flow

The hilly streets and alleys of Onomichi have become a tourist attraction thanks to the presence of cats. However, the overpopulation of stray cats has led to conflicts with residents through issues like feces and the risk of disease. Behind the signboard proclaiming “Cat Town,” the management system had not kept pace.

The “Ono Cat” is a mobile surgery vehicle that performs spaying and neutering. The cost per surgery is about 10,000 yen. Including the vehicle’s maintenance costs and the veterinarian’s wages, the operation is by no means light. Yet, this project continues to run because more effort has been placed on “designing the flow” rather than the surgery itself.

Specifically, local animal welfare organizations identify where the stray cats are, residents cooperate in capturing them, veterinarians perform surgeries inside the vehicle, and the cats are returned to their original locations—this so-called TNR (Trap-Neuter-Return) process is connected by the physical base of the mobile surgery vehicle. The fact that residents do not need to transport cats to distant hospitals significantly lowers the barrier to participation.

Here, the “outsiders” are not just the vehicle and the veterinarians. The very idea of treating the cat issue not as a matter of individual goodwill but as a community mechanism has been brought in from outside. Instead of blaming those who feed the cats or seeking to eliminate them, roles are organized around the concrete act of surgery. Translating emotional conflicts into structural issues is likely at the core of this project’s design.

The number of cats receiving surgery has steadily increased. However, the true achievement lies beyond the numbers—the voices from the field indicate that “residents who used to shout at each other over cats have started to converse about the arrangements for capturing them.”

—

Kure—In a Sea Where 90% of Oysters Died, Data Begins to Supplement “Intuition”

In 2024, approximately 90% of farmed oysters around Kure City experienced mass deaths. Hiroshima Prefecture accounts for about 60% of the national oyster production. The catastrophic damage occurring in the sea that underpins Kure’s economy is not just a problem for one aquaculture operator; it is a situation that shakes the foundation of the regional economy.

The causes are considered to be complex. Rising sea temperatures, decreased phytoplankton, and issues with farming density—these factors have compounded, but conversely, it also means that the aquaculture mechanisms that had relied on years of experience and intuition can no longer adapt to environmental changes.

The restoration project that has begun, aiming for shipments by spring 2026, is worth about 200 million yen. What is noteworthy is that at its center lies data-driven aquaculture technology. Sensors continuously measure seawater temperature, salinity, and plankton levels, visualizing the optimal conditions for oyster growth as data. Furthermore, the project is also considering establishing a system for year-round oyster shipments. Breaking away from seasonal products signifies a transformation of the revenue structure itself.

Marine environment experts and fisheries technicians from outside are reading data alongside local fishermen. The fishermen are also beginning to learn new criteria for judgment while confirming how their own experiential knowledge corresponds to the data. What is happening here is not the denial of intuition but a translation process between intuition and data.

What the “outsiders” have brought in is not just sensors and analytical methods. The very framework of “describing the state of the sea in a shared language rather than through individual experience” is what has been introduced. Personal insights are being transformed into a mechanism that can be handled by a team.

However, what the 200 million yen investment will leave behind in the community is still unclear. Whether the technology will take root or be passed on to the next generation will be determined in the coming years.

—

The Conditions for Rooting Demonstrated by the Three Sites

Iwakuni, Onomichi, Kure. What becomes visible when we line up these three cases is not a simple diagram of “things changed because outsiders came.”

What they share are the following three conditions:

1. External hands are integrated into the “arrangements”
The cooperation team members in Iwakuni start with festival preparations, the surgery vehicle in Onomichi is positioned within the capture-surgery-return flow, and the experts in Kure read data alongside fishermen. In each case, they are placed as roles within existing mechanisms. They are not “guests” who come to give a lecture and leave.

2. Emotional issues are translated into structural issues
Conflicts among residents over cats, the anxiety of fishermen who lost oysters, and the resignation towards depopulation—each site has its emotional landscape. However, the projects move forward by creating a place within specific procedures for those emotions without denying or inflaming them.

3. It is clear “who is being eased”
The woodworking classes ease the elderly residents struggling with arrangements, the mobile surgery vehicle eases residents who could not take cats to the hospital, and data-driven aquaculture eases fishermen who are troubled by passing on their experience. Projects where beneficiaries are clearly visible provide motivation for the community to take over even when support ceases.

—

The Human Warmth Remains Within the Mechanisms

The “hands of outsiders” are not magic. What people from outside bring in is not so much new ideas but rather a perspective that rearranges what already existed within the community into a mechanism. The woodworking skills were in the mountains. Those who cared for the cats were in the alleys. Fishermen who knew the sea were at the port. What was lacking was the arrangements to connect them and the hands to turn those arrangements together.

All three sites are still in progress. The cooperation team’s term is finite, the operating costs of the surgery vehicle are an annual issue, and whether oysters will truly return is up to the sea. However, once a mechanism starts to turn, something is born that cannot be captured in a blueprint—a somewhat awkward trust among those who have shared the arrangements.

In the three towns of Setouchi, the gears are still turning somewhat awkwardly. But within that creaking, there is undoubtedly warmth.