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Identifying Key Elements of Community-based ESD: ESD-J’s
Projects to Collect ESD in Practice in Japan and Asia
Fumiko NOGUCHIJapan Council on the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD-J)
5-53-67-B2F, Jingumae, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo 150-0001, Japane-mail: fumiko@esd-j.org

Abstract
Since its establishment in 2003, the Japan Council on the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable
Development (ESD-J) has paid close attention to informal learning processes in community-based efforts topromote local sustainable development. ESD-J carried out two projects to collect information on and visualise
community-based ESD practice: the “Asia Good ESD Practice Project (AGEPP)” (2006-2008), covering the
Asian region, and the “ESD×Biodiversity Project” (2009-2011) at the national level. This article presents key
elements of community-based ESD, derived from the observed cases of ESD in practice documented throughthese two projects.
Key words: Asia, community-based approach in ESD, ESD case study, local community

1. Introduction
At international ESD forums, especially the ones
organized by UNESCO, often there is a token presence of
civil society actors who are working closely with local
communities, while voices of the UN agencies, government officials and academics are louder than those of theNGOs. Although civil society is clearly recognized as animportant sector in promoting ESD in the International
Implementation Scheme for DESD (UNESCO, 2005)
and the Bonn Declaration (UNESCO, 2009), the lack offinancial resources to attend international conferences
and the limited opportunity to access international ESD
discourses on the part of civil society actors havemarginalized the voices from the grass-roots level ininternational ESD debates.
As a consequence of the insufficient participationfrom the civil sector in international ESD discussions,one particular view has become dominant, namely that
“ESD” refers to learning activities in the limited educational settings of formal and non-formal education. With
its focus on institutionalised education, ESD tends to behigher education-initiated, science education-based,teacher-centred and knowledge- and technology-oriented.
It is difficult for these ESD practices to result in socialand political changes. Educational responses to sustainable development should not be restricted to inserting
thematic sustainability contents into curricula or addressing technological and scientific questions. ESD has
a broader sense; it is about our lives, living and livelihood.
Global Environmental Research
14/2010: 137-146
printed in Japan

ESD needs to go beyond the existing educationalframework, which is based on transmission of knowledge; it is important to focus on informal learning processes as well. A more “complete” ESD should bepromoted leading to social and political action byempowering those who do not relate themselves to
educational institutions or “ESD” as a global education
movement. Based on the understanding that the key tomainstreaming ESD is to involve it in local community
activities, the Japan Council on the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD-J), a Tokyobased civil consortium for ESD promotion, has emphasised informal learning processes in community-based
efforts to promote local sustainable development in Japanand other Asian countries since its establishment in 2004.
ESD-J has carried out two projects to document andshowcase community-based ESD in practice: the “Asia
Good ESD Practice Project (AGEPP)” (2006-2008)
covering 34 cases from six Asian countries, and the“ESD×Biodiversity Project” (2009-2011) covering nine
Japanese cases. This article presents the background ofthese two ESD-J projects and describes some of thereported cases that exemplify multi-stakeholder andcommunity-based approaches to local sustainability. It
identifies “key elements of community-based ESD”
based on the author’s summary and synthesis of accounts
provided by NGOs reporting their own “good practices”
through the ESD-J projects. It will therefore sketch thecontours of community-based ESD in the geographic
contexts of Japan and the Asia-Pacific region, basedlargely on anecdotal evidence, with the hope of©2010 AIRIES

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F. NOGUCHI

contributing to the conceptualization and theorization of
informal learning in community-based efforts to promotelocal sustainable development.

2. Two Projects of ESD-J
ESD-J is a consortium of Japanese organizations andindividuals working in diverse areas relevant to sustainable development. ESD-J members, many of whom are
NGOs, have emphasised local communities as the coresite of ESD promotion in Japan and Asia, and NGOs as
the key players in community-based ESD, based on theirown experiences at the grass-roots level. These views
have been repeatedly expressed in ESD-J newsletters,
board members’ meetings and local gatherings. However,since “community-based ESD” had neither been carefully analysed nor discussed theoretically, ESD-J felt theneed to document community-based sustainable development initiatives led by NGOs, including both education-oriented and action-oriented activities. ESD-J
carried out two projects the “Asia Good ESD Practice
Project (AGEPP)” and the “ESD×Biodiversity Project,”in order to document locally-based ESD practices in civilsociety.
2.1 The Asia Good ESD Practice Project (AGEPP)AGEPP was carried out from 2006 to 2008 to document community-based ESD efforts in Asia. ESD-J
worked with six NGOs of six Asian countries that wereselected through an open application process: BINTARIFoundation (Indonesia), Environmental Broadcasting
Circle (Philippines), Centre for Environment Education(India), NRC-NFE (Nepal), Friend of Nature (China) andthe Local Sustainability Alliance of Korea. AGEPP also
aimed to strengthen networking amongst these NGOs inorder to enhance the NGOs’ ESD efforts in each country.
Three international workshops were held in Tokyoand Korea as an integral part of the project (Fig. 1). In thecase documentation process, member NGOs brainstormed
the direction and key ESD elements that they thought
Asian NGOs should emphasize based on their own
experiences in their local communities. They discussed

Fig. 1 AGEPP 2nd International Workshop held in Tong Yeong,
Korea, 2007.

what ESD meant to them, the uniqueness of the Asian
context, and sustainability challenges faced by local
communities in Asia. In particular, AGEPP members
highlighted NGOs’ role in paving the road towards local
sustainable development and developing culturally,
economically and socially appropriate practices byintegrating traditional/ indigenous knowledge withmodern scientific knowledge.
In total, 34 cases (approximately five cases per country) were reported on by AGEPP members. These casereports cover formal, non-formal and informal education
activities, focusing on various thematic areas such as
agriculture, poverty, gender, public health, poverty
eradication and tourism as well as diverse target groups
such as youth and children, the disabled and indigenous
peoples. All the executive summaries have been translated into Japanese, Indonesian, Tagalog, Chinese andKorean, and both the English case reports and executive
summaries in local languages are downloadable from the
AGEPP web site (www.agepp.net/) (Fig. 2). AGEPP has
also provided the space for civil society actors to share
information not only on ESD activities across countries
but also on critical factors in ESD implementation, which
will be discussed in Sections 3 and 4 of this article.
AGEPP members are now deliberating on post-project
activities, and they are planning to establish an Asian
NGO network on ESD by 2014.
2.2 The ESD×Biodiversity project
The announcement of the Japanese Government’s
hosting the Tenth Meeting of the Conference of theParties to the Convention on Biological Diversity(CBD-COP10) in Nagoya City in 2010 motivated ESD-J
to conduct a three-year project called “ESD×Biodiversity” (2009-2011). This project aimed to document ecologically sustainable community development practices inJapan and highlight the interrelatedness amongst
people’s empowerment, social justice and biodiversity
conservation. In 2009, Japanese NGO members of ESD-J

Fig. 2 AGEPP website – 34 community based ESD cases aredownloadable.

ESD-J’s Activities to Promote Community-based ESD in Japan and Asia

reported on nine community-based activities (see Box 1
below).
Box 1: The ESD×Biodiversity Project.
1) Towards a sustainable Okhotsk-Monbetsu community, from the indigenous Ainu perspective (Hokkaido
Prefecture, Japan’s northernmost island)
An Ainu fisherman, Mr. Hatakeyama, and a few supporters had been requesting the government to protect
indigenous people’s right to use natural resources andland in a sustainable way and to help them recoverindigenous rights in other areas. In particular they appealed to the Hokkaido Municipal government against its
plan to construct an industrial final waste treatment
facility at an Ainu sacred site. The NGO Sapporo Free
School “You,” sympathizing with Hatakeyama’s calls forfulfilling the indigenous rights of the Ainu people, started
supporting his activities and organised a network called
the “Mo-pet Sanctuary Network (MSN).” MSN includes
local citizens as well as NGOs outside the community,
such as international NGOs for indigenous right protection and Ainu-related organisations. MSN has beenworking towards building a community consensus forachieving sustainable development in Monbetsu, by
bringing a case to the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (PFII), organising symposiums, and conducting local environmental surveys on wild salmon,
which have been excluded from the socio-environmental
survey by the developer and the local government.
2) Learning from a model of a sustainable lifestyle froma village community (Miyagi Prefecture, Tohoku
Region, Honshu – Japan’s main island)
Traditional knowledge on sustainable natural resource management and traditional lifestyles harmonisedwith nature still remains in Yamada Village locatedamongst paddy fields and mountains in Miyagi Prefecture in northern Japan, but traditional knowledge about
natural resource management is now disappearing due toaging of the local population coupled with out-migrationof youth and serious depopulation of rural communities.
The local NGO Kurikoma Highland Nature School has
been conducting study tours and workshops to revalue
the local culture and ecological environment, to nurturepride in the village amongst villagers, and to revitalise
the local economy in a sustainable way through tourism.
3) Learning through collaboration for national forest
management amongst local communities, an NGO
and the government (Gumma Prefecture, Kanto
Region, Honshu Island)
In 1983, the national government planned to develop
a ski resort and dam in the Akaya national forest. The
local residents and the Tokyo-based NGO Nature
Conservation Society of Japan (NACS-J) conductedparticipatory research on the development plan’s possible
impacts on the local ecosystem, and made an appeal tothe public about its potential adverse impacts on the local
ecosystem and local economy. Seventeen years later, the139

government gave up the plan. Since then, the local people, NACS-J and the government have made a triangularagreement for co-management of the Akaya forest, andhave been carrying out ecological surveys with local
people as well as people from outside the community,
environmental education at local primary schools,
re-development of the natural forest and streams, anddocumentation of oral history.
4) Development of a management structure for biodiversity conservation at the Fujimae Wetland (Aichi
Prefecture, Chubu Region, Honshu Island)
In 1984, the government planned the construction of a
final waste treatment facility at the Fujimae Wetland totreat wastes from the major urban centre of Nagoya. A
local environmental conservation NGO stood up and for
fifteen years took organized actions to halt the plan, including ecological research, multi-stakeholder dialogues,
broad advocacy and awareness raising activities, disseminating information through newsletters and symposiums, and forming partnerships with domestic andinternational NGOs. In this process, the Nagoya residents
reduced waste by 23%, and the plan was cancelled. The
case presents a process of consensus building and implications for ESD, highlighting the importance of leadership and participatory assessments, as well as partnershipand dialogue amongst a diverse array of stakeholders.
5) High school students mobilized to recover a local
Satoyama environment (Ishikawa Prefecture,
Hokuriku Region, Honshu Island)
The Mitsutani area has been facing depopulation andaging issues; the traditional knowl edge and practices ofsustainable natural resource management have been lost,
and the community forest areas have been abandoned fora long time. Since 2002, local high school teachers andresidents have organised a student volunteer programmethrough which students can learn traditional forest
management practices and take care of the community
forest. The students have developed a sense of
self-esteem about being part of the community throughthese volunteer activities. The programme is now open to
all the local residents as a part of a life-long learning
course offered by the municipal board of education.
6) Efforts to develop a hometown with rich biodiversity
in the Takeeda Area (Okayama Prefecture, Chugoku
Region, Honshu Island)
Takeeda Primary School has about 30 students and islocated in a small district that has a population of only
755. The school and the local community have jointly
developed a group to teach future generations about thenatural and cultural assets of their hometown. The casestudy examines their activities such as recovering thenatural river environment, conducting nature-based education and performing field ecological research, in orderto have the students develop a sense of community and tolearn about the natural environment of Takeeda.

140

F. NOGUCHI7) Revitalisation of Teshima Island – from a dumping
ground for illegal industrial wastes to an island of
biodiversity (Kagawa Prefecture, Shikoku Island)
In 1990, a company was charged with dumping industrial wastes illegally on Teshima Island. The local residents continued with a local environmental survey,
appeal and dialogue until they won compensation forenvironmental pollution through arbitration. Ten years
later, the government implemented environmental
conservation projects to stop the outflow of polluted
water from the old dumping site, and the marine ecosystem has gradually recovered. The local residents haveheld an “Island School” every year and conductedactivities to share Teshima’a experience of conflict
resolution and the island’s rich environment with themedia, scientists, lawyers and children both in Teshinma
and elsewhere.
8) Recovering the Shigetomi Wetland by re-connecting
humans with nature in the community (Kagoshima
Prefecture, Kyushu Island)
The Shigetomi Wetland Small Museum was established based on a partnership amongst the local government, a local NGO, researchers and local residents. The
museum got its start when the local NGO heard one of
the residents say, “I wish we could recover the beautiful
beach that we used to enjoy.” In the process of developing the museum, the NGO made efforts to involve local
residents through beach cleaning activities, raising theirsense of ownership of local natural resource use, andconducting participatory research on the marine ecosystem. In addition, the NGO developed a database on thelocal ecosystem easily accessible to the residents andnetworked with the local government, university andbusinesses.
9) Villagers developing an ESD programme for theirvillages, a story from Yambaru (Okinawa Prefecture,
Japan’s southernmost islands)
Yambaru’s three villages are located in a rich
sub-tropical rainforest zone in northern Okinawa, surrounded by a sea with a coral reef. With support from a
local NGO and the local government, villagers havedeveloped an educational tourism programme whereparticipants can learn about local biodiversity andcontribute to sustainable economic development of thevillages. They have conducted a local social andenvironmental survey involving different generations ofresidents to re-evaluate the local culture and environment, and held pilot training programmes in 2009.
Source: ESD-J, 2010. Summarized and translated by the author.

3. Core Thrusts of Community-based ESD
Three interlinked ‘thrusts’ can be identified as criticalto community-based ESD practice documented throughthe AGEPP and ESD×Biodiversity projects: i) systemicchanges, ii) consensus building and iii) community
empowerment. The achievement of these thrusts can befacilitated by strategies elucidated in the next section. Itshould be noted that these “key elements of community-based ESD” are based on the author’s analysis ofrecurrent themes and points raised in the cases reported
through the ESD-J projects as well as during deliberations on them in focus group discussions and public
symposiums. While these key elements are still tentative,
they will be conceptually refined by consulting relevant
literature and may be integrated into ESD-J’s action plan
towards 2014. As space does not permit providing
detailed accounts of all the cases collected through the
ESD-J projects in this article, readers are invited to consult the AGEPP website to read the self-reports by theparticipating NGOs on the concrete results of theiractivities which have been presented as successful
examples of community-based ESD.
3.1 Systemic changes: Challenging conventions andcreating new knowledge
In Japan and other Asian countries, people used toappreciate the benefits of rich biodiversity, and they
developed lifestyles, traditions/cultures, natural resource
management systems, industries and legal systems to
support their lives in the given natural conditions. Issues
that threatened the principles of sustainability, in particular related to human rights violations and inequalities
based on gender, class and ethnicity, did and still do exist,
but it can be argued that natural resource management
practices were sustainable, or at least more sustainable
than today. A common observation shared amongst theparticipants in the ESD-J projects is that traditional
knowledge and practices with regard to sustainable
resource use have been and continue to be lost in theprocess of modernisation.
The cases reported through the ESD-J projects haveattempted to change the current modernist social, political, educational and economic systems into moresustainable ones. For example, in the AGEPP case in
Ikalahan (Philippines), the local indigenous people challenged conventions and set up a culturally, economicallyand ecologically sustainable industry producing processed foods such as jam and juice from indigenous plants.
They combined traditional/indigenous knowledge on theusage of indigenous plants with modern scientificknowledge on food production and marketing. They
studied and critically examined the applicability andeffectiveness of marketing methods and food production
technologies. At the same time, the Ikalahan people also
explored how to keep their indigenous identity and pridein indigenous culture while leading a modern life andestablished their own schools to pass indigenous knowledge and values on to their children’s generation (Fig. 3).
Through food production, the Ikalahan people valued
their knowledge, developed a new knowledge system byselecting applicable modern knowledge, determined how
to develop their own community and established theirunique educational system. In this process, the Ikalahanpeople have struggled but have been empowered byestablishing a sustainable economy and updating theirESD-J’s Activities to Promote Community-based ESD in Japan and Asia

141

Fig. 3 Ikalahan School where traditional knowledge and values are
passed on to the next generation.

Fig. 4 Residents participating in reservoir cleaning activity, in
Jeonju.

indigenous knowledge system by themselves. OtherAGEPP cases such as Nagaland (India), Baduy(Indonesia) and Bolinao (Philippines) have followed asimilar process. The Hokkaido and Miyagi ESD×
Biodiversity cases show local people currently trying toestablish alternative sustainable economies and social
systems through trial and error learning.

understood well by the community as a whole, so thatawareness leads to collective action to change theexisting systems and conventions.
A similar process of consensus building was also
observed in the Aichi and Kagoshima ESD×Biodiversity
cases, and the Nagaland (India) AGEPP case. Sections
4.2 through 4.5 illustrate how informal learning leading
to consensus-building was facilitated in these cases by
NGOs.

3.2 Consensus building
To solve local sustainability issues requires a community consensus on the importance of the issues. Local
sustainability challenges are often identified by thosebelonging to a minority group who are most vulnerable tothose challenges caused directly and indirectly by thedominant majority group and/or developed countries, or
those who have different views and opinions from the
majority of the society or community members fordifferent reasons. For example, in the AGEPP case inJeonju (Korea), a small minority of local residents whowanted to protect the local swamp from a reclamation
project to develop residential land came into conflict withthe local government, a developer and residents who
supported the development plan.
The Jeonju Council for Local Agenda 21 (JCLA21)
played the role of a facilitator and hosted an open seminarand meetings to encourage dialogues between residents
supporting the development plan and those opposing it.
Along with the dialogues, a local environmental survey
was also conducted jointly by the local people and experts, and collaborative activities between supporters andopponents such as cleaning of the wetland and planting
were carried out (Fig. 4). Through face-to-face interactions, sharing of information and joint activities overthree years, tensions between the opposing parties
gradually disappeared, and trust and cooperative relationships were developed. After both parties became
well-informed and came to see the situation more
holistically, they reached a consensus for “no development but conservation.” To achieve local sustainable
development, the issues identified by a minority group in
the community needs to be shared with the majority and3.3 Community empowerment
Those who organize themselves to solve a local
sustainability challenge (and sometimes constitute a
minority group in the community) need to first inform thecommunity of its significance, so that the majority of
local people who do not consider the issue problematic
can understand it as their own problem. Better information, however, does not automatically translate into
action to address the problem. ESD needs to go far
beyond better information and better awareness todemocratic deliberations on competing or conflicting
norms, values, attitudes, beliefs and assumptions. To
understand the interconnectedness between oneself andthe issue is the first step in developing a sense of ownership towards the issue and eventually taking action to
encourage systematic changes that can help solve it.
For example, in the AGEPP case in PPLH (Indonesia),
the local residents in Trawas used to cut trees in the local
forest illegally, and deforestation caused serious landslides and floods in the area. While multiple factors led toillegal logging, the 1990s currency crisis in Asia caused
massive unemployment, making logging an easy way toobtain cash income. According to a narrative provided by
the local NGO, PPLH, the difficulty of finding alternative sources of income led to a feeling of powerlessness
amongst the local people, which sometimes drove themto gambling or prostitution, which in turn drove them to
cut trees for fast cash. Observing that the community wasin a vicious circle of poverty – environmental destruction – disempowerment, PPLH invited the local residents
to come together to identify local issues, and organised

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F. NOGUCHIfrom the local community but outsiders who can provide
opinions and views alternative to those held by theinsiders/local people who have always lived in thecommunity.
In the cases reported through ESD-J projects, NGOs
often play the role of facilitating processes of change
leading to local sustainable development. In the sections
that follow, four strategies often employed by theseNGOs are discussed. They play integrative roles inbuilding consensuses amongst the local stakeholders andleading collective actions towards a more sustainable
future for the local community. ESD-J has named such
persons who facilitate change “ESD coordinators.”
Fig. 5 Farmers use water buffalos for tillage and their manure isused as fertiliser, at PPLH site.

working groups for interested residents. These groups
were organized around various themes such as forest
management, organic farming, renewable energy generation and women’s empowerment (Fig. 5). Throughthese group activities, the local villagers reflected on
their traditional knowledge on natural resource management and combined it with “modern” knowledge formore sustainable practices. They created learning opportunities, sometimes inviting experts from outside.
Now the villagers can make a living from organic
farming, processed food production and the sales ofgenerated electric power to the government, and they
have also learnt to save money for financing theirchildren’s education and purchasing home electric
products.
The villagers in Trawas developed a sense of “hope”
for their lives as well as ownership over community
decision making. It is the process of empowerment –from ignorance to awareness, from powerlessness toefficacy, and from a marginalised outsider to a proactive
participant in community decision making. A similar
process of community empowerment is also observed in
the ESD×Biodiversity cases in Kagoshima and Aichi and
AGEPP cases of the Farmers School (India andIndonesia) and MASIPAG (Philippines).

4. Critical Strategies for Community-based
ESD
4.1 ESD coordinators’ role in facilitating changes
It is not easy to find individuals who have heartfelt
sympathy for the interested parties, understand thehistorical, social and economic contexts of the issue well,decide to work with the interested parties, make patientand endless efforts to redefine an issue initially deemed
to be of private concern as a social issue relevant to thewell-being of the local community at large, and empower
the community to take actions to address it. Althoughthose individuals can be anyone, including ordinary
citizens, school teachers, government officials, or NGO
staff inside or outside the community, often they are not

4.2 Creating a space for multi-stakeholder dialogues
and open-ended deliberations
ESD coordinators often create safe and open spaces
for dialogue amongst multiple stakeholders where they
can meet and exchange opinions, such as roundtable
meetings, open symposiums, forums and study groups.
ESD coordinators also often make maximum efforts toavoid unnecessary conflicts amongst the interest groups
in the community. They often position themselves neutrally and take time in helping the key persons to consider
and carefully examine both the advantages and disadvantages of action and non-action by providing
alternative data and survey results conducted throughparticipatory research.
For example, in the AGEPP case in Nagaland (India),
the village faced a deforestation crisis in the 1990s.
Illegal logging due to economic pressures was destroying
the forest which was an integral part of the local culture
and livelihoods where local people went for hunting andcollecting wood. When the state government banned
logging in the Konoma forest, the village people weredivided over the decision, debating whether they shouldstop or continue their hunting tradition for conserving
biodiversity in their forest. The village vice-head createda space for a dialogue between pro- and anti- hunting
groups, in order to discuss not only the hunting issue but
also the future of the local community and their culture.
In the process of organizing eleven meetings over three
years, experts were invited to give necessary input, and alocal environmental survey was also conducted. Villagers
learned about the local environment and reflected on thevalue of their culture. After deliberations, the villagers
decided to stop hunting and develop a new sustainableeconomy, ecotourism, which better suited the current
local environmental situation. Through multi-stakeholder
dialogues and open-ended deliberations, the villagers
obtained information from diverse perspectives, came tovalue what they had, reflected on what they had lost in
the process of modernisation, and altered their culture
into a more sustainable one (Fig. 6). A similar strategy
was employed in the ESD×Biodiversity cases in
Kagoshima, Kagawa and Aichi and the AFEPP case inJeonju (Korea).

ESD-J’s Activities to Promote Community-based ESD in Japan and Asia

143

Fig. 6 A Konoma elder proudly showing bones of hunted animals.

Fig. 7 An Ainu fisherman demonstrating the traditional way offishing, in Hokkaido.

4.3 Building alliances and enlisting support frominside and outside the community
In the cases reported through ESD-J projects in Japanand Asia, the interested party that has identified local
sustainability challenges is often a minority or group of
marginalised people in the community. When thenational or local government does not ratify international
conventions or agreements pertaining to human rights,
this often causes a gap between locally accepted practices
and what is internationally required. ESD coordinators
often help the interested parties network with othersupportive interest groups from inside and outside thecommunity, such as the media, nationwide NGOs,international NGOs and UN agencies. ESD coordinators
may help the local interested party network with theseorganisations to mobilize appropriate support and obtain
useful information from the outside. Positive media
coverage can provide the general public with opportunities to learn what is happening in their community andsometimes can increase support for the interested party.
Views expressed by UN organisations and national
governments can also exert pressures on local governments and communities to address the issue.
For example, in the ESD×Biodiversity case in
Hokkaido, an Ainu fisherman and an NGO from outside
the local community, called Sapporo Free School You(SFY), uncovered a government plan for constructing a
final waste treatment facility around the upper stream of
the Toyooka River, which is a sacred site to the Ainu
people, and they realized it would be problematic. However the majority of the local residents, as well as both the
Hokkaido municipal and Monbetsu local governments,
supported the plan since they viewed it necessary to thetreatment of aquaculture effluent from scallop farms andfor inviting more industries into the area for further economic development. SFY contacted the Tokyo-based
NGO Shimin Gaikou Centre (SGC: Citizens’ DiplomaticCentre for the Rights of Indigenous Peoples), who hadprovided expert advice based on their knowledge ofinternational conventions and declarations, in particular,
Article 8(j) of the Convention on Biological Diversity,
which calls for indigenous/local participation in decision

making processes in connection with development, andthe UN Declaration on the Rights of the Indigenous
Peoples. Based on this advice, the Ainu fisherman, SFY,
SGC and other supporters collected over 300 signaturesfrom individuals and indigenous rights-related organisations around the world. A statement claiming indigenous
land rights was submitted to the UN Permanent Forum on
Indigenous Issues (UNPFII) as well as to the Hokkaido
Municipal Government and a related section in thenational government, with the long list of 300 signatures.
In the conflict in Monbetsu, the Ainu fisherman andhis very few supporters tended to be isolated and often
felt lonely and pressured. Through networking, they
became aware of the ways in which similar problems
were dealt with at the international level, which encouraged them to continue their efforts. Although the situation has not improved much, MSN appealed the issue at
CBD-COP10 in Japan in 2010, and it is going to holdseminars and events to increase the understanding of the
majority in the local community of the significance ofsustainable development, as well as the Ainu people’s
world view that appreciates the gifts of nature without
depleting them (Fig. 7).
In the ESD×Biodiversity cases in Kagawa and Aichi,
the Lashi Watershed Project and the AGEPP cases ofGreen Hope Action (China) and Samvardhan, networking with the interested groups outside the community andcountry have also served to empower local minority
groups.
4.4 Forming local organisations
ESD coordinators have also organised local people’sgroups based on their interests and concerns. Organisingsuch groups is effective in clarifying local responsibilities in tackling sustainability challenges and preventing
unnecessary attacks on specific individuals, especially on
minority group members in a conflict situation. It also
helps develop a sense of autonomy amongst the local
people on local sustainability issues, and facilitates theirlinking with multiple stakeholders inside and outside thecommunity.
For example, in the case of Samvardhan (India), the144

F. NOGUCHI

Centre for Environment Education (CEE) implemented acommunity leader development programme. From 2003,
CEE and the trained community leaders organised local
councils across 24 villages in order to break the vicious
cycle of poverty, unsustainable agricultural practices andenvironmental degradation in southern Gujarat State. The
village councils planned and carried out projects for
improving economic conditions and establishing sustainable natural resource management, focusing on threethemes: water management, education and sustainableeconomy.
By organising councils, the villagers have developed
a sense of ownership of the local issues, carrying out theentire project, including surveying, planning, implementation and review. They have also learnt about the problem of unsustainable and opportunistic development
assistance by international, governmental or nongovernmental organisations, such as providing materials
and technologies out of sync with the local realities andneeds. They have developed a sense of unity by sharing
problems and learning that they are not alone in theirstruggles. The villagers have not only obtained skills andknowledge about sustainable management but also
developed the ability to decide and act in order to solve
their own community issues. Organisations themselves
have led the empowerment process, and the CEE andtrained community leaders have played a significant rolein facilitating the villagers’ development of theirpotential capacity. A strategy of creating local organizations is also employed in the ESD×Biodiversity cases in
Hokkaido, Kagawa and Gunma, as well as the Gram
Nidhi and Andhra Pradesh (India) cases and the AGEPP
cases of Jeonju and CLEAN 2704 (Korea).
4.5 Conducting participatory research“Development” in the narrow sense of the word isdeemed problematic when it happens in areas with richnatural resources the local people have commonly andtraditionally used in collecting edible plants or wood,
hunting or fishing, and/or when development destroys
the familiar landscape the local people have treasured forgenerations. Development projects are planned for economic reasons, such as resort construction and agricultural use, and also to meet needs generated by urban
development elsewhere, such as the construction ofwaste treatment facilities or dams. Development is often
planned and implemented by entities outside thecommunity, such as the national or municipal government, companies or individual investors.
A social and environmental assessment is often conducted before the development project is implemented.
The assessment however is often planned and carried
only by external experts who are not familiar with thelocal historical, cultural and ecological context, or internal experts who are the developers themselves or havesome economic interest in development. The local people
are often not involved in the planning and data collection
process, and research methods and collected data tend tofavour the developers. Therefore, residents lack alterna-

tive information except for what the developers provide,and they have to decide the future of their own community based on the very limited – and often biased –information. Even when the local people feel somewhat
opposed to the development plan, they tend to think thatthey have no power or right to say anything about what
the developers are doing.
ESD coordinators have often conducted alternative
studies involving local residents, schools and experts
such as researchers from higher education institutions.
The results of such research often help the conflicting
stakeholders understand the situation logically andobjectively and avoid emotional disputes. This type ofparticipatory research also helps the local people tore-evaluate the importance of local assets such as nature,
tradition and culture that are often ignored in the current
economic system. Participatory research constitutes animportant learning process for multiple stakeholders, andit can also provide valuable information for alternative
economic or social development plans.
For example, in the ESD×Biodiversity case in Gunma,
the local people questioned the result of the socioenvironmental assessment conducted by the government
for the development of the ski resort and the dam
construction on the village water source area in thenational forest. Concerned about the development plan’slong-term impact on the local environment and economy,
they conducted a survey on the local ecosystem and water
quality, with the expert support from Nature Conservation Society of Japan (NACs-J). The local people and
NACs-J invited local residents as well as people fromoutside of the community to participate in conducting thesurvey. The local people reconsidered the value of thelocal environment and their local nature-based culture.
The survey resulted in the finding of a pair of golden
eagles, a protected species in Japan, on the site where thedevelopment project was planned. The local people and
NACs-J submitted an opinion paper to the Forestry
Agency of Japan, based on their survey results. (Fig. 8)This action exerted pressure on both the Ministry ofConstruction and the ski resort developer, and resulted inFig. 8 Residents checking animal droppings as part of a local
environmental survey.

ESD-J’s Activities to Promote Community-based ESD in Japan and Asia

the cancellation of the ski resort development plan andwithdrawal of the developer from the dam construction
project. As seen in this case, alternative but evidence-based scientific data are effective for convincing
the conflicting parties of the rationale behind environmental conservation (Fig. 8). Participatory research was
also undertaken in the ESD×Biodiversity cases in
Okayama and Aichi and AGEPP cases of Jeonju (Korea),
Happy Action About Water and Tracking Cranes (China),and MASIPAG (Philippines).

5. Conclusions and Ways Forward
John Fien (1993) distinguished amongst education
about, through and for the environment as follows:“Education about the environment emphasises theknowledge about natural systems and processes and theecological and political factors that influence decisions
about how people use the environment. Education
through the environment may foster environmental concern if students become captivated by the importance andfragility of ecosystems and the beauty of landscapes, or
immersed in the values conflict over an environmental
issue. Education for the environment builds on education
about and through the environment, a sensitive environmental ethic, and the skills for participating in environmental protection and improvement.” The many cases
presented as ESD in the international ESD circle often
resemble Education about or through, but not for,Sustainable Development, to borrow Fien’s words. Manyof the ESD activities target youth and children and aim at
equipping learners with skills and knowledge about
environmental conservation or providing nature-basedlearning opportunities outside the school. They areneither directly tackling the fundamental cause ofunsustainability issues nor intending to enable community members to participate in the community decision
making process or, ultimately, to enhance politicalparticipation.

145

Looking at the reality of the local community in Asia,
even including Japan, and in particular in rural villages,
there are numerous and profound day-to-day needs for
activities aimed at solving unsustainability issues, suchas depopulation of rural communities caused byurbanisation and youth out-migration, rural poverty andthe loss of biodiversity and indigenous knowledge. Many
undocumented outreach efforts for local sustainability
have been conducted by civil society actors in remote
and/or peripheral communities where support bygovernments or international organisations does notreach. These activities have not been highlighted orlabelled ESD.
Furthermore, some of the key elements of ESD identified in this article have been discussed for quite a longtime with regards to rural development in the field ofinternational development. Discussions on endogenousdevelopment (Tsurumi & Kawada, 1986; Tsurumi, 1996;
also see the COMPAS website) and participatory
methods such as Participatory Rural Appraisal(Chambers, 1997, 2002) seem to have particular relevance to ESD efforts. So far, communication between
international cooperation and rural development circles
on the one hand and ESD circles on the other has been
limited. Many working in the field of community
development, for example, people working in bilateralagencies such as the Japan International Cooperation
Agency (JICA), have not even heard of the term ESD.
Rich theoretical and practical work in the fields ofinternational cooperation and rural development could
contribute to the enrichment of community-based ESD,
but it has not been well acknowledged or incorporated in
ESD discussion. There are many field guides forsustainable rural development and trainings and workshops for local community organisers through which
participants can obtain knowledge and skills that can beapplied in real community settings (see, for example,
SEAPCP’s resource materials; HAP International, 2007).
Multilateral and bilateral organisations such as UNDP,

Fig. 9 Key elements of community-based ESD identified through ESD-J projects.

146

F. NOGUCHIUSAID, CIDA, SIDA and JICA also have their own
frameworks for local community development. Efforts
need to be made by the ESD advocates and practitioners
to engage not only with environmental and sustainability
experts but also with “development” experts to advanceESD thinking and practice.
The key elements of community-based ESD discussed in this article (Fig. 9) are based on the experiencesof Japanese and Asian NGOs that participate in ESD-J’s
projects and activities. They are based mainly on
self-reports of these NGOs’ experiences such as casereports as well as on focus group and informal discussions ESD-J has held with them, and are not based ontheoretical or academic discussions. This analysis needs
to be further organized theoretically and developed intosome form of framework to guide ESD-J’s future activities. Such a framework would also be useful in sharing
the significance of community-based ESD with stakeholders in international cooperation and rural development and strengthening the role of civil society in ESD
efforts, for the ultimate purpose of empowering communities to respond to local sustainability challenges. It
is hoped that ESD-J’s future activities will contribute to
the further development of ESD after the end of
UNDESD, by making linkages between ESD and ongoing and planned initiatives or programmes for sustainable
development, such as the UN Decade of Biodiversity(UNDB), and the Traditional Knowledge (TK) Initiativeby the United Nations University, not to mention global
education and development initiatives such as theMillennium Development Goals (MDGs) and Education
for All (EFA).

Acknowledgement
I would like to thank Dr. Yoko Mochizuki, Research
Fellow for Education for Sustainable Development at theUnited Nations University Institute of Advanced Studies,for her professional advice and consistent help in finalising this article.
References
Chambers, R. (1997) Whose Reality Counts? Putting the First Last,
Intermediate Technology Publications, London.
Chambers, R. (2002) Participatory Workshops: A Sourcebook of
21 Sets of Ideas and Activities, Earthscan, London & Sterling,
VA.
ESD-J (Japan Council on the UN Decade of Education for
Sustainable Development) (2004) ESD-J Annual Report 2003,
ESD-J, Tokyo.
ESD-J (Japan Council on the UN Decade of Education for

Sustainable Development) (2005) ESD-J Annual Report 2004,
ESD-J, Tokyo.
ESD-J (Japan Council on the UN Decode of Education for
Sustainable Development) (2010) ESD×Biodiversity Project2009 Report, ESD-J, Tokyo.
Fien, J. (1995) Education for the Environment: Critical
Curriculum Theorising and Environmental Education. Deakin
University Press, Geelong.
HAP International (Humanitarian Accountability Partnership
International) (2010) HAP 2010 Standard in Humanitarian
Accountability and Quality Management.
http://www.hapinternational.org/pool/files/2010-hap-standard-i
n-accountability.pdf
Tsurumi, K. and T. Kawada (1986) Naihatsuteki Hattenron(Endogenous Development Theory), The University of Tokyo,
Tokyo.
Tsurumi, K. (1996) Naihatsuteki Hattennron-no Tenkai (Evolutionof Endogenous Development Theory). Chikuma Shobo, Tokyo.
UNESCO (2005) United Nations Decade of Education for
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WEB References
AGEPP website: www.agepp.net/
COMPAS (Comparing and Supporting Endogenous Development)
website: http://www.compasnet.org/index.html
South East Asia Popular Communications Programmes (SEAPCP)
website: http://www.seapcp.org/

Fumiko NOGUCHI
Fumiko Noguchi is the International Programme
Coordinator for the Japan Council on the UN
Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD-J). She has a Master’s of Environmental Education from Griffith University,
Brisbane, Australia. She has been working on
education for sustainability, in particular from indigenous perspectives,
through the planning and coordination of educational programmes andlocal community development activities with Australian indigenous
peoples and the Ainu people of Japan. She is also committed to the
documentation and analysis of the local community-based ESD activities inparticular by NGOs in Asia and Japan, and networking with NGOs in Asia
on ESD. She plans to embark on PhD studies at the Royal Melbourne
Institute of Technology University, Australia, from July 2011.

(Received 9 October 2010, Accepted 24 December 2010)