This GIAHS has a diversity of land uses unique to its deep valley topography, including grasslands, rice paddies and fields with ridges around them, rivers, and plantation forests. The diversity of topography, environment, and human activities, including the seasonal changes throughout the year and the use of local grass resources by Tajima cattle of Mikata District have created a complex ecosystem that seems like an environmental mosaic and maintained the diversity of organisms that live there. Rice farmers have traditionally restricted the use of agricultural chemicals in paddy fields because the cattle fed on rice straw.

Terraced rice paddies have been kept in clean conditions under the system based on the mutually supportive relationship between Tajima cattle farming and rice farming in terraced paddy fields.

Tajima Beef, known as Kobe beef in the market, is a type of wagyu beef which is one of the lineages in the breed of Japanese Black. The proposed site has long been known for its production of high quality Tajima cattle. The oldest records indicate that Yamana family, the feudal lord of Tajima Muraoka, hosted a calf exhibition in the Edo period in 1849. Local people established cattle lineages called “tsuru-ushi (literal translation: cattle in family tree)” and continually improved them. In 1898, Japan’s first cattle lineage register, which became the foundation of cattle lineage registration, was established. As it is indicated by the history, Mikata district is the leading site in Japan on breeding and improving Japanese Black.

Farmers in the proposed site treat their cattle as family members. Small-scale cattle farmers still have cattle barns just next to their residence. Average cattle farmer in the proposed site keep about ten cattle per household. This small-scale operation allows the farmers to provide intensive care for each of their cattle. The popularity of the Japanese Black today focuses on bulls of specific lineages. The proposed site is the only area in Japan that has exclusively improved the cattle raised within the site for more than 100 years among the Japanese Black breeds. Thus, the Tajima cattle raised in the proposed site have played an important role in maintaining the genetic diversity of the Japanese Black.