Recent events

Research Institute for Humanity and Nature

Community fora
■ May, 2010: Awaji, Hyogo

Forum in Awaji-Island: Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services■ August, 2010: Kyoto

A Proposal for the Coming Age of the Global Petroleum Boom
■ September, 2010: Saijyo, Ehime

Groundwater Science for a Futurability■ December, 2010: Kanazawa

International Conference on Forest-related Traditional Knowledge and Culture
in Asia: Satoyama and Diversity■ March, 2011: Kyoto

Another Biodiversity: Genetic Diversity in Food and Agriculture■ May, 2011: Aya, Miyazaki

The Futurability

Initiatives

International TERUHA Forest Summit: Bio-cultural Diversity and Ecosystem
Services for Development■ June, 2011: Kyoto

Building Socio-ecological Resilience in a Changing World■ September, 2011: KyotonioatulrcCi

East Asian Forum of Anthropology and Ethnology: Sustainable Use ofEcosystem Services and Traditional Knowledge in Asia
Diversity

Academic conferences and symposia

sceursoRe■ June, 2010: Montreal, Canada

International Conference on Biological and Cultural Diversity for Development■ July, 2010: Tokyo

Symposium on Benefits from Satoyama, Satochi, and Satoumi and Governancefor their Sustainable Use and Management: Exploring Commons for the Future■ October, 2010: COP10 Satellite Meeting: Nagoya

Noöcentrism

A Joint Programme of Work on Biological and Cultural Diversity■ November, 2010: Kyoto

Groundwater as a Key for Adaptation to Changing Climate and Societies■ May, 2011: Makuhari, Chiba

Exhibition at Japan Geoscience Union Meeting

Physiocentrism
Biocentrism■ August, 2011: Stockholm, Sweden

Impact of Urban Services on Human Security■ September, 2011: Kyoto

The Futurability Initiatives: Mission Statement
We focus our efforts on conjoining the existing RIHN Domain Programmes(Circulation, Diversity, Resources, Ecohistory, and Ecosophy) through a set ofcross-cutting initiatives towards the transdisciplinary field of Environmental
Humanics of the Earth System. The Futurability Initiatives emerge from ourconviction of the need for design-oriented science. Whereas cognitive sciencehas conventionally been employed to describe ‘what is’, design science asks
‘what ought to be’ the character of interactions between of humanity and nature.
The Initiatives are therefore dedicated to consilience, “a jumping togetherof knowledge ... across disciplines to create a common groundwork forexplanation” (E.O. Wilson 1998) and intended to enhance design-oriented,problem-solving approaches to contemporary environmental problems. Each
Initiative focuses on a major field of thought roughly analogous to the ancient
Greek realms described by Gaia, Oikos and Ethos.
FociFuturability
Consilience

Earth System
Transdisciplinarity

Design-oriented science

A side event of “International Conference on Science and Technology
for Sustainability”
Society-academia coordination events■ November, 2011: Bangkok, Thailand

Formation of Consortium on Environmental Humanics of the Earth System
Organization (Core Research Hub, Center for
Coordination, Promotion and Communication)
Professors
HeadYo-Ichiro SATO
Makoto TANIGUCHITakakazu YUMOTO

Associate Professors
Itsuki C. HANDOH
Takashi KUME
Takashi KURATA

Contact
The Futurability Initiatives,
Research Institute for Humanity and Nature (RIHN)
457-4 Motoyama, Kamigamo, Kita-ku, Kyoto 603-8047, Japan
TEL +81-75-707-2504 E-mail: futurability@chikyu.ac.jp

GAIA
OIKOS
ETHOS

GAIA Initiative

OIKOS Initiative

ETHOS Initiative

As human societies design their futures they require best understandings of the Earth’s natural dynamism, and the significanceof human action within it. The Gaia Initiative therefore performs
investigations of the physiospheric bases of humanity at multiple
spatiotemporal scales. The Initiative emphasizes description ofphysical standards related to boundaries and thresholds so as
to allow analysis of, and best eco-technological adaptations to,
dynamic Earth environments.

The Oikos Initiative investigates the practices and knowledge
systems through which cultures and communities humanize
biospheric environments. It emphasizes the human ecologies
and economies—from modern techno-centric to traditional—
associated with environmental commons. The Oikos Initiative
therefore brings special attention to the values associated withresource use, and the importance of linking range of ecotechnologies and social equity.

The Ethos Initiative examines the noöspheric values anddynamics affecting human ecological knowledge, especially in
relation to the key areas of food production and human health.
The Initiative describes the relationship between environmental
knowledge, including that embedded as cultural value andsense of self, on quality of individual and community life.

Anthropospheric design
within dynamic Earth environments

Enhancing human capability
and capacity for coexistence

Linking commons and community forlong-term maintenance of ecosystem services

Our planet Earth viewed from space: the atmosphere, hydrosphere,
and geosphere are the physiospheric bases of life and humanity.
Field clinical services at a
local village, Savannakhet
Province, Lao PDR.
Medical doctors fromthe National Institute of
Public Health provide
medical advice andtreatment free-of-charge
to the villagers(Photo: Kazuhiko Moji).

Paddy fishing after a monsoonal
flood event, Assam, India. Local
communities benefit from floods thatprovide good opportunities of paddy
development and fishing(Photo: Yasuyuki Kosaka).

People at an Alazeya
watershed, Yakutia, Russia,
make dry-salted salmon.
The fresh salmon caviar isserved in the lunch breakon the day(Photo: Junko Fujiwara).

A controlled burning at thefoot of Mt. Yufu, Oita, Japan.
It has long been believed thatburning in early spring helps
maintain ecosystem services
in the grassland(Photo: Takakazu Yumoto).

FociPhysiosphere
Environmental dynamics
Boundaries
Natural catastrophe

A city / local anthroposphere (Ankara, Turkey) is inharmony with the geological features of the earth(Photo: Kohei Matsunaga).

風水土Foci

FociBiosphere

Noösphere

Environmental economics
Ecosystems service
Commons

山野河海Life style
Food and production
Health and medicine

生存知