Thursday 28 January 2010

From Paris, France

Although I promised myself to limit my travels during the first three months of 2010, I couldn’t resist the temptation to attend - with the generous support of the Rachel Carson Center - a meeting this weekend at UNESCO about a new Japanese conservation initiative. Having a ‘no-fly time’ is aimed at reducing my carbon footprint and increasing my writing productivity, but the Global Workshop on the Satoyama Initiative – organized by the Ministry of the Environment of Japan and the United Nations University Institute of Advanced Studies – promised to be stimulating experience for the special issue of the International 
Journal of Heritage Studies I am co-editing on “Preserving Biocultural Diversity on a Landscape Scale: the Roles of Local, National and International Designations”.  Satoyama is a Japanese term for ‘human-influenced natural environments, such as farmlands and secondary forest, that people have developed and maintained sustainably over a long time.’  As the Japanese are hosting the 10th Conference of Parties of the Convention on Biological Diversity in October 2010, this will be their flagship initiative to demonstrate their international commitment to protecting the environment.

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