Kankyo-Gaku-to-Ayumu (My Journey with Environmental Studies - From Satoyama Initiative to Regional Circulating and Ecological Sphere)

This book reflects on the author’s quarter-century journey with environmental studies, focusing particularly on the period following the 10th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD COP10) held in Nagoya, Aichi Prefecture in 2010. It details various endeavors to strengthen the science-policy interface in this field. During this period, the author led a busy yet fulfilling academic life as a Professor at the University of Tokyo and Vice-Rector of the United Nations University (Aoyama, Tokyo), the only UN organization headquartered in Japan. He was the first professor to concurrently hold both positions following the university’s transition to a national university corporation. This book brings together the outcomes of major research and social practice activities from that time up to the present.
 
Around the time of COP10, the author was appointed as a member (and later Chair) of the Central Environment Council and as a member of the Council for Food, Agriculture and Rural Areas Policies, providing advice on Japan’s environmental and agri-environmental policy. In these roles, he advocated for key initiatives, including the global dissemination of Satochi-Satoyama, which he had proposed with research colleagues in Japan and internationally, as well as efforts to secure designation in Japan for FAO’s Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS). At COP10, the International Partnership for the Satoyama Initiative (IPSI) was launched to share the concept of Satochi-Satoyama worldwide and to expand into a global initiative for conservation and sustainable use. IPSI remains highly active to this day, and since its inception, the author has actively participated in expert meetings held in Japan and around the world as a member.
 
As Chair of the Central Environment Council, he spearheaded discussions on promoting an integrated approach, leading debates aimed at systematizing environmental policy through the integration of decarbonization, resource circulation and living in harmony with nature. The origin of this idea lies in the concept of “planetary boundaries”, proposed in 2009 by a group of scientists led by Dr. Johan Rockström, the director of the Stockholm Resilience Centre at that time. This concept quantitatively defined nine planetary boundaries, including climate change, biosphere integrity, and biogeochemical flows, with these numerical values continually updated to reflect the latest data up to the present. Furthermore, in 2015, the internationally renowned academic journal, The Lancet, introduced the new concept of “planetary health”, which views the health of the Earth and human health as inextricably linked – a concept that is becoming increasingly established in the international community.
 
The Fifth Basic Environment Plan, which the author led as Chair of the Central Environment Council, represents the application of an integrated approach, exemplified by planetary boundaries, at the regional scale. This Plan introduced the concept of the “Regional Circulating and Ecological Sphere” (Regional CES) to integrate environmental policies at the local level. Consequently, this fostered the integration of environmental and regional policies throughout Japan, establishing a solid foundation for implementing far more concrete and integrated environmental policies. It then evolved into the Sixth Basic Environment Plan, advancing toward regional environmental policies aimed at realizing well-being (quality of life). Today, the concept of Regional CES is expanding globally, particularly in Southeast Asia, with growing international collaboration built upon this integrated approach.
 

(Written by TAKEUCHI Kazuhiko, Project Professor, Institute for Future Initiatives / 2026)