# The Aim of this White Paper

## To Recognize the Current Status and the Future Direction

Modern civilization has not been able to live in harmony with nature, not fully recognizing human activities' impacts on nature. Resource consumption and environmental pressures keep increasing due to the population growth and the expansion of economic activities. With this trend, it would be extremely difficult to keep maintaining economic and social situations we have enjoyed.

In recent years, however, we can see signs which could change the current economy and society by environmental policies. Stepping out of our current consumer culture which is heavily depending on exhaustible resources and energies, we should establish a surely sustainable civilization on our significant planet Earth.

## To Show Ways to Transform our Society

Efforts to improve our environment do not necessarily conflict with economic and social development. We can develop our economy and society by making steady efforts for improving our environment, internalizing the ways of thinking below:

• Receive resource gifts from the earth considering her limit; reuse and recycle limited resources; return the unwanted materials within the allowable range of the natural world.

• Take all possible measures ranging from individual efforts to social scheme creation. With Japanese cutting-edge technologies, establish a society where environmental efforts lead economic growth, maintaining economic competitiveness.

• Spread the essential value of “Mottainai” to every corner of the world to pass the rich and sustainable global environment on to the next generation and beyond.

# About the Picture on the Front Cover "Hydrangeas with fowl"

(Doshoku-saie, Colorful Realm of Living Beings)

Ito Jakuchu, Edo period, Dated 1759

Color on silk

The Museum of the Imperial Collections, Sannomaru Shozo-kan

This work, created in 1759, is one of the scrolls of Doshoku-saie and is painting hydrangeas, roses and azalea with fowls. With the thinly-applied and softly-layered pigments and great combination of subtle colors, this work achieves a skilled and beautiful color harmony as a whole.

Doshoku-saie is the title of a group of thirty hanging scrolls of birds, flowers and other subjects, which was created by the 18 $ ^{th} $ century Japanese painter, Ito Jakuchu (1716-1800). Jakuchu himself provided the work with the title that means colored paintings depicting animals and plants, and this massive work is especially renowned as Jakuchu's masterpiece.

The Plants and Animal scrolls were originally donated by Jakuchu to Shokoku-ji temple in Kyoto, and they were created to honor the images of the Syakamuni Triad drawn by Jakuchu which remains in the collections of the temple. The scrolls depict flowers, birds, bugs and fish, and have a sense that all of the living things of this world praise the Buddha.

(Aya OTA, The Museum of the Imperial Collections)

## I f you have any opinions and comments regarding this booklet, please contact the following:

Environmental Strategy Division

Environmental Policy Bureau

Ministry of the Environment

Tel: +81-3-3581-3351(ex.6255)

E-mail: hakusho@env.go.jp

Abridged and Illustrated for Easy Understanding

Annual Report on the Environment,

the Sound Material-Cycle Society and the Biodiversity 2010

Published by: Ministry of the Environment

Translated by: Ministry of the Environment

Published in September 2010