大学における野生動物管理教育カリキュラム

抄録

 Recently, there has been an urgent need to educate wildlife specialists as human-wildlife conflicts have increased drastically. The Science Council of Japan (2019) advocated the five proposals in “Wildlife Management in a Shrinking Population” as follows, 1) reinforcement of organizing ability with cross-ministerial collaboration, 2) rules and systems for sustainable use of local resources, 3) roles of the municipality and the local community for comprehensive land use, 4) open system to the citizens for collecting and using the scientific data, 5) establishment of an education program for highly specialized human resources to promote community-based wildlife management. Many universities and colleges offer lectures on wildlife, including those on wildlife biology, wildlife damage management, forest conservation, and conservation ecology. However, these lectures are provided separately, and there are very few systematic programs for educating wildlife management specialists in Japan. In contrast, approximately 400 universities in U.S. and Canada have the systematic programs. The Wildlife Society also has a certification system for wildlife biologists. The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fishery and the Ministry of the Environment established “the Committee for Wildlife Management Education” and compiled the model core curriculum for wildlife management education in 2021 (Suzuki and Yoshida 2024). The Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, University of Hyogo, Gifu University, Rakuno Gakuen University, Utsunomiya University, Yamagata University, Tokyo College of Environment, and the Foundation for Shiretoko Institute of Wildlife Management have tentatively carried out the model core curriculum. Here, an outline of a trial for this curriculum is presented.