Monday, December 19, 2022 | The Japan Times | 7

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Preserving biodiversity with science, foreteller insects
Roundtable
NADER SAMMOURICONTRIBUTING WRITER

How blind are we to things too big to see
directly? Take the environment — why
should people care? Our muddled perceptions can make it grueling to find the rightbalance between individual well-being andconservation of nature. Falling biodiversity— the variety in the life around us, frommicrobes on up — has severe repercussions
for human well-being. As species go extinct,
we lose the food, clothing, medicine andmore that they can give us, some of it lost
before ever being discovered.
Yasuo Takahashi, research manager ofthe biodiversity and forests area at theInstitute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES), joined Ross Rowbury at The
Japan Times Sustainability Roundtable forits 25th iteration. They discussed the institute’s work in the realm where science andpolicy intersect to formulate strategies concerning biodiversity, climate change, andsustainable consumption and production.

Serendipitous events in life

Serendipitous events often steer us onunexpected routes in life. As a youth,
Takahashi enjoyed nature and liked birdwatching with his grandparents. He completed his four-year undergraduate studies
in a Hokkaido marsh, where he became
enthralled by the dispersion of prevailingplants. Rowbury noted that people who
at a young age have a robust connection

Taking action in the real world

with nature tend as adults to have a muchheightened sensitivity toward environmental challenges and sustainability issues.
The underlying human-nature dichotomy is that although people seek nature’s
irrefutable healing benefits, they still fear
its lurking — and often unpredictable —threats. People in developing countries are
more directly reliant on natural resources.
Knowing that led Takahashi to apply for a
two-year volunteer project in Malawi that
the Japanese government had arranged, forwhich he “luckily” — as he humbly claimed— got selected. “I stayed in a tiny village
in Malawi, one of the poorest countries in
the world, which bordered a lake close to amountain. Though people were poor, they
never abstained from smiling. Their sourceof happiness and kindness was a paradigm
shift for me,” Takahashi said.
Once again, serendipity — perhaps life’s
mesmerizing sauce — played its unsystematic role. Takahashi’s visit to seek a deeper
understanding of the African environment(an external trek) unpredictably turned
into an internal hike imposing the query:
Are we overcomplicating the simple process of happiness?

Fishing for alternatives

People in Malawi were very dependent on
the lake and its surroundings for food andother resources. “They overfished in the lakeand cut plenty of wood for cooking. With
their increasing population, they have been
expanding the deforested areas,” Takahashi
said. The strain that overpopulation has put
on nature is significant, and overfishing one

Takahashi is mainly
involved in where
biodiversity scienceand policy meet, plus
research on socioecological systems.
YUICO TAIYA

One can’t save nature only by studying it,
Takahashi said: “Studying nature is vital toprogress our relationship with it, but mypreference leans towards further proactivity in the real world.” Rowbury stressed theimportance of a solid knowledge base, saying, “Without the knowledge base, we can’t
work out the issues and potential solutions
and ultimately can’t get started.” Takahashi
recognizes the value of scientific evidence,
particularly when sharing it for the sakeof reaching a global agreement, because
people in diverse parts of the world havedifferent understandings of nature. He also
thinks direct experience with nature ispivotal to understanding complexity that amodel might fail to provide.
Rowbury noted that the concrete objectives that societies require in their policies
spring from scientific understanding, so it issafe to say that a combination of scientificanalysis and field experience provides thelink to get a consistent policy with whichpeople can agree.

Local knowledge tests science

Yasuo Takahashi, research manager of IGES YUICO TAIYA

species may destroy a resource for another,with flow-on effects.
Rowbury wondered how an understanding of the issues could be translated into
practical strategies. Takahashi explainedthat solutions are born “by understanding
human drivers and human activity.” Raising
an eyebrow, Rowbury seemed to be thinking about how quite difficult it can be tocreate policies that alter how people interact with nature so they don’t burden theland. “Everyone has been fishing in Malawi
the same way they have always done it,”Rowbury said. “It’s just that the number has
increased. People may rebel, saying, ‘Our
grandparents have done it this way,’ andthere is no reason why they shouldn’t do it
similarly. On an individual basis, it’s toughto understand the impact one is having. Yet
on a collective plane, the impact is quite
serious.”Rowbury later asked the question, “Sohow do you convince people to change how
they interact with nature, and how do you
get them to adopt new behaviors?” Takahashi emphasized the significance of having
alternatives “because fishermen go fishingfor income, and if they can’t go fishing, they
have no income. So they would need alternatives to sustain their survival (before anything else), like having protein substitutes
such as soybean rather than meat.”

Tsukuba’s outlying R8 districts
realize and promote their charms
ESG/SDGs
MAIKO MURAOKACONTRIBUTING WRITER“There is nothing in this town” — this isa phrase you too often hear when askinga resident of a rural area in Japan aboutplaces to go and things to see. And it wasexactly what many participants said in2018 at the first residents’ workshop forthe promotion of the area surrounding thecentral part of the Ibaraki prefecture cityof Tsukuba.
The area consists of eight districts, nowreferred to as R8 (Region8), that haveexisted since long before they merged
to form the city of Tsukuba 35 years ago.
With the merger, the Tsukuba Station
area became the center of the entire area,
making the R8 districts rather peripheral.
This may have added to district residents’lack of confidence in what their area had
to offer. The launch of the workshops
and the establishment of associations fordevelopment were intended to encourage
residents, with support from the municipal government, to find value in resourcesthat they had long neglected or taken for
granted and then use them to promote
the area. “In fact, there are so many things
to see and enjoy in Kamigo. I can say that
because I have the eyes of an outsider,”said Hiroshi Kokubo, the chairman of
the Association for the Revitalization ofKamigo District.
Kokubo, 68 years old, was originallyfrom Kamigo but lived away from home

A performance at the Kamigo festival
CITY OF TSUKUBA

for decades after entering Waseda University in Tokyo. During his career, he engaged
in planning, launching and promoting
commercial facilities and services suchas department stores and convenience
stores in locations across Japan, moving toa new place every few years. This experience led him to believe that understanding
an area’s history, culture and environment and building connections with local
people is the path to success for any kindof regional activity — advice he gives hisstudents in the introductory classes onregional promotion that he teaches as avisiting professor at the University of Tsukuba and Ibaraki University.
When Kokubo returned to his hometown and started thinking about how he
could use his skills and experience in revitalizing the area, he was already equippedwith half of the tools he needed — a sufficient knowledge of its history, culture andenvironment — because it was where hehad grown up. But he lacked connections
with residents because he had been awayfor decades. “I joined golf groups and organized class reunions. The best way to build
relationships is through fun events,” hesaid. Some of the people he reunited withor got to know for the first time throughthese activities have become members of
the association.
He did not hesitate to participate in any
kind of local event or project, and one ofthem was the R8 residents’ workshop.
“Among the many ideas that we cameup with in the workshop, we decided tomake an illustrated map of the town of
Kamigo as our first project,” he said. The
colorful map, larger than a newspaper
page, is full of places worth visiting —shrines, temples, historic sites such as castle ruins, the picturesque Fukurai Bridgeover the Kokai River, leisure spots suchas a fishing pond and the riverside Kawaguchi Park, which has been designatedas one of the geosites in the Mt. Tsukuba
Area Geopark, and more. Participants whohad said, “We have nothing” came to realize through the map-making that they had

The workshop where the illustrated map of thetown of Kamigo was created CITY OF TSUKUBA

everything. “The map is used in the local
elementary school’s English class to learn
about and introduce the students’ hometown,” Kokubo said proudly.
“Involving youths is another key to thesuccess of regional revitalization. While
this kind of local association tends to consist of senior citizens, our members range
from young people to elderly,” Kokubo
said. But he never had to solicit them. “Ifyou are constantly doing something interesting and promoting it well, people of all
generations will come to you naturally,”
he said.
Festivals are something that attract
people and make them want to take part.
That is why the association has beenbringing back old festivals and organizing new ones such as the Kamigo Festival,
held in autumn last year and this year.
More than 2,500 people visited the festival
to enjoy music and dance performances,
eat at food stalls and buy local products
and handmade goods.
The other seven districts of R8 also havetheir own organizations and groups of residents that, with support
from the city of Tsukuba,
are engaged in revitalizing
and promoting the charmsof their areas.
Tsukuba is a member of the Sustainable
Japan Network, a group of companies thatcooperate with this newspaper in spreading
information about sustainability in Japan.
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Culture and science seem to have a onesided love relationship. Though almost
all cultures cherish science, science isinclined to ignore culture as containing
mythologies that go untested and arepassed down through sentiment.
Takahashi mentioned the value ofworking scientifically in tandem withindigenous elements and local knowledge of nature. Rowbury recalled a personal experience with a shopkeeper in
the northern part of the Kanto region
who told him it would be a cold winterthat year. “How do you know?” Rowbury
asked. The merchant told him of an insectthat could predict the level of snow in the
coming winter and lay its eggs just abovethat level. If you see its eggs high up on
tree trunks, there will be a lot of snow.
“Understanding nature is associatedwith the tradition — something weath-

Takahashi contributes to this intergovernmental policy organization. YUICO TAIYA

ermen never broadcast, but comes fromliving in harmony with the natural environment. The insect may be more accurate than the long-term weather report,”
Rowbury said. Praising nature, he continued: “It is so fascinating because it isso broad in terms of diversity. Nevertheless, sometimes you need some degree ofsimplicity to offer an easy understandingof that biodiversity.” Takahashi nodded
and spoke of how almost 80% of Japanese people reside in urbanized areas,“hence there is a huge gap between ourlives and nature. From that vantage point,
it wouldn’t be easy to empathize withbiodiversity.”
One of the primary ways for people tograsp the issue’s immensity is to get close
to nature. Although people in the recent
pandemic years had no choice but to stayhome, many have also realized there is noneed to live in the city, especially thoseworking from home. One might finallyhave the chance to abandon urban living— convenient but
aggravating, with its
wires and relentlessads — to be closer tonature.
Roundtable is a monthly series of Englishlanguage events organizedby The Japan Times Cube.
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