This article tries to analyze the sustainability of the management of natural resources from the viewpoint of semi-domestication. This approach took up, as a case, the relation between the utilization of the river and the social organization on the reed field spreading over the Kitakami estuary in Miyagi Prefecture, and analyzed sociologically the system of the preservation of the resources. The reed has been maintained as the reed field in this district though its value as the resources has

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... n reduced. Based on the fact, this article revealed what had maintained the reed. In utilizing the reed, people living in this district need to be concerned with the reed through social organization called "Keiyakuko" . They have been considerably regulated by the common norms of Keiyakuko. Their collective way of being concerned with the reed had firmness which made them insist on their right strongly on one hand and flexibility which made their consensus building possible, on the other hand. Under these circumstances, the reed field has been maintained. Further more, the reed, the regional resources, has been ranked mainly as the object of a side job and has been the common wealth of Keiyakuko, which has made it continue to exist in their life. This article showed that what had maintained the reed field was not the strict and all protecting way of the preservation of the resources but the semi-domestication relations which contained both firmness and flexibility on the utilization of the riverbed and social organization. This article considered what kind of sustainability Today' s management of the resources of the region can have by understanding the change of nature and the system of society and variation of both.