PARENT SESSION
Symposium #15: Philosophy of ecology in the eastern and western civilizations.
Sponsored by ESA Asian Ecology Section
Organized by: Y.D. Choi and J. Carter.
Wednesday, August 8, 2001. 8:00 AM to 11:35 AM. Madison Ballroom B
Philosophy and practice of ecology in Japan in special regrads to forest restoration.
Miyawaki, Akira1, 1
ABSTRACT- Japanese culture has co-existed with nature under an indigenous polytheism "Shinto," whereas the western civilizations have developed under monotheism. All living and nonliving objects are respected as parts of gods under the Shinto. Artificial establishment of native forests, as an example of such respect, is a common traditional practice to compensate the loss of natural areas due to land development for agriculture and housing in Japan. Remnants of such forests (called "Chin-ju-no-mori" in Japanese language) still exist near rural villages. In the past decades, the concepts of both Japanese Chin-ju-no-mori and western ecology have been synthesized to restore native forests in more than 600 sites of various vegetation zones along the 3,000-km long Japanese Archipelago. This approach of reforestation, called "Miyawaki method," has extended to Borneo of Malaysia, Brazilian Amazon, Chile, China and other parts of the world since 1992, and expects to expand further. This merge of eastern (Japan in this case) and western natural philosophy provides and exemplary model for the conservation and management of global natural resources in the 21st Century.
KEY WORDS: ecology, philosophy, Japan, chin-ju-mori