The objective of this study is to understand beef branding and its traditions in a mountainous area of France. To address this subject, this study focuses on the process of local product branding under the geographical indication law, and how this law maintains the quality and traditions of Fin Gras de Mézenc beef. Fin Gras de Mézenc has unearthed buried memories of past animal husbandry, and people use this knowledge as a regional tradition to uphold the characteristics of the geographical indication. Fin Gras de Mézenc, which is distributed and consumed locally in a small area, is a suggestive case for understanding the application of the law in other regions.

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This study provides basic data on article and author characteristics in the Geographical Review of Japan as well as their temporal changes. Data were collected from articles published in the journal from 1980 to 2013, including four items from the author's profile (age, gender, affiliation, and position) and four types of bibliographic information (area of research, type of article, number of authors, and original draft). The distribution of these attributes and their temporal changes were then analyzed. The results showed significant changes over time in the attributes concerning the author profile and bibliographic information; for example, changes in the proportion of “women” and “graduate students” among authors, an increase in the proportion of “human geography,” “research note,” “coauthored,” and “dissertation-based” articles, and a lengthening of the period from submission to acceptance were observed. Further studies are needed to explore the institutional and environmental factors that may have caused these changes.

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The International Geography Olympiad (iGeo) is a scientific meeting in which senior high school students participate conducted at the site of the annual meeting of the International Geography Union (Regional Congress of the IGU). For a long time, Team Japan continued to experience difficulties at iGeo. However, all Japanese students received medals (three silver and one bronze) at the iGeo held in Tver, Russia, in August 2015, the first such remarkable achievement for a Japanese team. This article discusses how the improved results were achieved. For example, a screening test was used to select students of high caliber and special training was given to the four selected students. We hope to introduce to all Japanese geographers the final domestic selection criteria for the 2015 iGeo. This would be useful for improvement of geography education generally.

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Senior high school teachers in Japan must devise practical use of GIS to in line with a new national curriculum. Therefore, GIS specialists have supported the teachers in choosing suitable GIS website and software for their facilities and budgets, training teachers to manage GIS, and developing teaching materials with GIS. These GIS specialists' support cases are reviewed in this paper. It revealed that supports to be able to watch GIS maps are more necessary rather than to edit them. Movies recording GIS operation are useful for them.

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