Controlled Burning Insurance for Aso Grasslands (Noyaki)

Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance (MS&AD Group) provides insurance coverage for the risk of fire spreading during noyaki: the traditional prescribed burning of the Aso grasslands in Kumamoto Prefecture, Japan. Noyaki has been practised for > 1,000 years across approximately 22,000 hectares of grassland within the Aso caldera, preventing forest succession and maintaining a unique semi-natural grassland ecosystem that supports around 600 rare plant and insect species, including endangered butterflies and beetles. The practice had been suspended in some areas due to concerns about fire-spread liability. MS&AD’s insurance coverage has enabled the continuation/resumption of noyaki, supporting the preservation of grassland biodiversity, carbon sequestration (the grasslands absorb 1.7x more CO₂ than all Aso households emit), water resource conservation, livestock grazing and landscape-based tourism. The product forms part of MS&AD’s broader Green Resilience strategy leveraging nature-based solutions through insurance.