Highlighting JAPAN

COVER STORY: Biodiversity is life. Biodiversity is our life.

Caption: Satoyama areas support many forms of wildlife including endemic species. A characteristic environment has been formed and maintained by moderate intervention through human work. Pictured, Aragijima in Wakayama Prefecture.
Credit: AFLO

Biodiversity is life. Biodiversity is our life.

Numerous biological species inhabit this planet, in diverse environments. And they form an astonishing array of relationships with each other. This is biological diversity.

“In order to be able to pass on this irreplaceable Earth to the generations of our children and grandchildren, we must transcend national borders and join forces.”

This is how Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, in his policy speech in January, stressed the nation’s intention on chairing the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP10), which will be held October 18–29 in Nagoya, Aichi Prefecture.

Japan has a natural environment of much geographical and climatic diversity, which serves to cultivate considerable biological diversity. Japanese have naturally developed a view of protecting the environment so that they can benefit from this biological diversity.

As Ahmed Djoghlaf, executive secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity, said in a video message to a symposium on the environment held in Kanazawa, Japan on February 6, “Rural agricultural communities and villages in Japan have a century-old history of carefully managing the forests, grasslands, streams and ponds upon which their living depends. In this time of environmental crisis, the international community has much to learn from such an enlightening culture.”

These rural agricultural communities are called “satoyama” in Japan. A satoyama has always been a place for people to live, as well as a “cradle” for diverse biological species. Society today is reassessing the value of satoyama, which sustain their biological diversity through human “intervention.”

2010 is the International Year of Biodiversity as declared by the United Nations, with a slogan, “Biodiversity is life. Biodiversity is our life.” It is also the year of COP10. It will be an important year for Japan and the world in aiming to achieve preservation of biological diversity and sustainable use.