First international symposium (Sustainable Society Design Center) “Towards sustainable and inclusive society: Visualizing diverse values of Nature”

Media hall, Kashiwa Campus and online

An advance registration is required.
Registration
*Participation in the venue is limited to members of the University of Tokyo (students and faculty members). If the number of participants exceeds the first 50, or if the event is held online only due to the spread of the new coronavirus infection, URL for online participation will be informed.

Our society is heavily dependent on various contributions from nature (such as food, timber, etc.) which are traded in markets. However, the value of nature is not limited to these monetary values. There are multiple and complex values to nature. For example, water purification provided by wetlands is not something that is traded on the market. But our society reaps the benefit, i.e. the good quality water. Furthermore, we cannot put dollar signs to all the values provided by nature. People, at times, refuse to put a monetary value on the forests that are deemed to be sacred. They consider it is not ‘right’ to trade something sacred on the market. In order to emphasize these diverse and complex values of nature, IPBES, the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, has produced the Values Assessment Report in 2022.

At the same time, in Japan, there are communities where local stakeholders use these diverse and complex values of nature to attract stakeholders and achieve local sustainability. These measures are especially important as many rural communities are ageing, and their populations are decreasing. In this symposium, researchers involved in the preparation of the IPBES value assessment report and the Japanese stakeholders who are involved in the regional revitalization are invited. It will discuss how we can build a sustainable and inclusive society by finding the junction between the scientific evaluation of diverse and complex values in the international arena and the practice of regional revitalization in Japanese regions.

Opening Remarks
HAYASHI Kaori (Executive Vice President, U-Tokyo)

Introduction of SSDC
KAMEYAMA Yasuko (Director, SSDC)

Aim of this symposium
FUKUNAGA Mayumi (Associate Professor, GSFS)

Part 1: Visualizing complex and diverse values of nature: From IPBES to National Ecosystem Assessments (NEAs)

Keynote Speech
Unai PASCUAL (Ikerbasque Professor, Basque Climate Change Center)

Presentation 1
Rachelle GOULD (Associate Professor, University of Vermont)

Presentation 2
ISHIHARA Hiroe  (Associate Professor, SSDC)

Part 2: Enhancing the sustainability of local communities through complex and diverse values of nature: Case from Japan

Presentation 1
MIZOGUCHI Jun (Deputy Mayor of Ikeda-Cho)

Presentation 2
UMEBARA Makoto (Representative, Umebara Design Office)

Part 3: Discussion
Discussion includes the presenters mentioned above and the following people.

Facilitator:
FUKUNAGA Mayumi (GSFS)

MINO Takashi  (Deputy Director, Tokyo College, U-Tokyo)
KAMII Hiroyuki  (Executive Adviser, National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies)
HASHIMOTO Shizuka  (Associate Professor, Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences, U-Tokyo)
YOSHIDA Yuki  (Researcher, National Institute for Environmental Studies)

Closing Remarks
DEGUCHI Atsushi (Dean, GSFS)

Moderator: ZHANG Runsen (Associate Professor, SSDC)

*Please note that the above program is tempraly scheduled.