Environment < Feature

Japanese Environmentalists Partner with Bay Area Organizations

Satoyama is a Japanese ecological vision for how communities can manage locally in co-existence with nature.

"By coming to the Bay Area, we are able to get a sense of how nonprofits in Japan can look in the future."

Over 50 people from the Bay Area community (including several from non-governmental organizations) met with Japanese counterparts at the Japan Information Center in San Francisco on October 23. They met at a forum titled “A New Future For Urban Agriculture In Building Sustainable Communities.”

At the public forum, representatives from four Japanese environmental groups talked about the growing trend in Japan of using traditional agriculture as a way to build sustainable communities. The topics included gas production from natural resources, traditional methods of pest control, and educational projects teaching community members to grow their own vegetables.

The forum was hosted by the GreenPal Project in concert with BAIDO member Japan-U.S. Community Education and Exchange (JUCEE) and other local nonprofit organizations. The GreenPal Project was established in the spring of 2002 by NPO birth, a Tokyo-based nonprofit organization working on green-space protection. The project is based on the ancient Japanese philosophy of “Satoyama.” The 2,000-year-old environmental concept, an integrated natural system of rice paddies, fields, orchards, creeks and ponds, offers a vision for how communities can manage locally in co-existence with nature.

Japan has industrialized rapidly in recent decades, and many traditional environmentally sustainable communities have disappeared. GreenPal’s mission is to develop partnerships with organizations around the world, through Internet-based discussions, information-exchange tours, and international symposiums, to share environmental solutions developed in different countries.

Other GreenPal members at the forum included the Oizumi Wind School, Musashino Satoyama Research Group, and the Center for Ogawa Bioregion.

Neighborhood Parks Council Executive Director Isabel Wade talked about the innovative approaches to urban agriculture found in different countries around the world, including Costa Rica, Kenya, China, Cuba and Guatemala.

During their one-week stay, the Japanese delegation visited several Bay Area environmental nonprofits to exchange information and best practices about urban agriculture and community gardening.

“With all the intense interest and commitment of people here to social change, Bay Area nonprofit organizations are really at the forefront within the U.S.,” said Rumi Sato, executive director of NPO birth. “Here we are able to access the latest information and developments. By coming to the Bay Area, we are able to get a sense of how nonprofits in Japan can look in the future.”

With the success of the forum, the GreenPal Project is expanding on a global scale. Sato is planning to host an international symposium on sustainability issues in Japan next year and hopes to have environmental protection organizations in Indonesia, Cuba, South Korea, and European nations participate.

JUCEE has been actively supporting the GreenPal Project and other collaborations between nonprofit organizations in the U.S. and Japan working on issues of common concern. For more information about the GreenPal Project or JUCEE, contact Senoe Torgerson at (510) 267-1920 x 5 or e-mail senoe@jucee.org.