This association was founded in 1982 and celebrated its 40th anniversary in 2022. It is made up of about individual members and organizational members, and includes many practitioners and community activists as well as professors and students. The Association characterised by its multidisciplinary nature, with members coming from a wide range of fields related to rural areas, including social science, economy, law, architecture, civil engineering, landscape, geography, and environmental science. Although the name of the association discribes “rural”, fishing villages, mountain villages, and towns are included in the scope of us. We wish that our members will enjoy the multidisciplinary appeal of our association not only by reading the journal, but also by attending conferences, submitting and presenting papers, participating in symposiums and research seminars, and taking part in joint research projects.
   Thirteen years have passed since the Great East Japan Earthquake struck in 2011, and while reconstruction continues, we are still in a situation where natural disasters in agricultural, mountainous and fishing communities are occurring frequently, such as many earthquakes and torrential rain disasters in various regions after that. There should be many situations where our association’s strength as a group of rural planning specialists can be utilised in the field of research, study and practical activities for reconstruction, and we will continue to focus on disaster response in the 22nd term.
   Now, after the long period of the COVID-19 disaster from 2020, the way we work and learn and our awareness of this is changing dramatically from the past. The association is always looking for ways to improve the way in which members of various ages and life stages can more easily participate, obtain information and interact with each other.
   The Association of Rural Planning is an academic society that goes further ahead of Japan’s declining birthrate, ageing society and depopulation issues, and can share cutting-edge issues internationally in the common field of rural areas. We would like to discuss with many of you the ideal shape of rural areas in times of change.

20th Apr., 2024

22th President (– 2026Apr).

Naoko SAIO, Dr.Eng.