Subjective Evaluation of Local Natural Resources with the Concept of Ecosystem Services

Re-visiting Environmental Education as a method of local sustainability

抄録

The purpose of this report is to present a method of subjective evaluation of local natural resources with the concept of Ecosystem Services among high school students. In this report, we take a closer look at 1) differences in students' evaluations of local natural resources based on personal experiences of conservation of resources and environmental education, and 2) whether or not students also show interest in local historical disasters. A workshop was held for high school students in Shiga Prefecture, Japan, who received Environmental Education on local water environment. The workshop aimed to find out how the high school students perceive functions and services of ecosystems by making a matrix to categorize the services and functions of ecosystems based on their learning experiences. The participating students consist of the 1st and 2nd grade of a high school students in Shiga Prefecture, Japan. The workshop contents are lectures, a group work to make a matrix, a group presentation, and discussion based on those group presentations. The results of the workshop made it clear that students' perception of ecosystem functions shares a similarity to the findings from the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment reports, that is, some functions of provisioning service used or needed in their daily lives are regarded as more important and close to them; whereas, regulating services, especially functions related to disaster risk mitigation, and cultural services are perceived as rather less important and not-close to the individual student as the scale of those functions are too large to see. Students learned that people have different views and place different values on local natural resources through peer-discussion. Such methods can contribute to helping younger generations think more deeply about local natural resource conservation and the relationship between those resources and their lives as well as a sound manner to understand different views regarding their conservation for local sustainability. Also, using the concept of ecosystem services could guide their attention to disaster risk reduction through the characteristics and functions of local natural ecosystems.