Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to discriminate methodologically and politically between “sustainable development / society” and “life-environmentalism,” which has been advocated in Environmental Sociology in Japan since the 1980s and it says that the most important thing for local residents of a locality is the conservation of the area’s local lifesystem. From the viewpoint of life-environmentalism, “sustainable development” is a questionable concept because it is excessively dependent on scientific technologies and ideas, as well as “natural environmentalism” and “modern techno-centrism” are. However, we can often observe that people living in a local area do some adaptable acts toward their environment in harmony with “sustainable development.” The reason why this sort of thing happens may be that many people believe in a linkage between environment and their lives and they wish for keeping good environment in order to maintain their own livelihood. Under this condition, the distance between two ideas, in spite of their methodological differences, will be gradually shortened.
