Another brilliantly clear blue sky today! On a day like this, I think I’ll finally start creating the biotope I’ve wanted to make for some time.
■ Biotope Pond | Reviving a Mud-Choked Pond
There is a small pond behind our house. Frogs and geckos used to live around it, but over the past year, during the COVID-19 pandemic, I had not been able to clean it. Fallen leaves and mud accumulated, leaving the pond in poor condition.
Looking more closely, it also seemed that wastewater was flowing into the pond, and it had become little more than a place where sludge collected.
Bubbles were rising from the bottom, and there were no living creatures to be seen. So today I made up my mind to scoop out the heavy mud and begin restoring the pond as a place where waterside wildlife can live again.
Japan’s Ministry of the Environment also introduces biotopes in “Tell Me About Biotopes” as places where many kinds of wild creatures can live. I cannot undertake anything on a large scale, but I can begin with this small pond.
■ Biotope Pond | Creating a Waterside Habitat Where Wildlife Can Return
I think it will take some time before living creatures return, but this is the first step!
Incidentally, I have heard that there used to be another pond in the place shown in the photo below. Once work on the current pond is finished, I would like to restore that one as well.
I am looking forward to the day when both ponds are revived as biotopes and the wildlife returns!
These small connections with nearby nature and the satoyama landscape have gradually become part of what Hitotsuya is today. Our current activities are also introduced in “Hitotsuya’s Activities”.