Recently, “the shift from government to governance” has been discussed widely in Japan. While the third sector has gained power around the world, non-profit organizations have also been expected to be actors in governance in Japan. This paper examines the spatial charac non-profit organizations and particularly looks at the non-profit organizations working scale. Local non-profit organizations are also counted on as actors in local governance.
While the spatial characteristics of non-profit organizations have been discussed in the field of geography abroad, there has been little research on them in Japan. Moreover, there is also little geographic research on actors in non-profit organizations in terms of spatial characteristics, which is the focus of this paper. The purpose of the paper is to illustrate the background of spatial distribution of non-profit organizations in a metropolitan area, with special attention to the actors in non-profit organizations and their development. The research area was the Tokyo metropolitan area and Tama city, which is located in the western suburbs of Tokyo. In addition, the paper focuses on non-profit organizations with corporate bodies. The results of the analysis and discussions are summarized as follows.
First, the spatial distribution of non-profit organizations in the Tokyo metropolitan area was examined, with the following results. 1) While many non-profit organizations are concentrated in central Tokyo, many are also located in suburban areas, especially in the western part of Tokyo. 2) The spatial range of activities differs between non-profit organizations in central Tokyo and those in the suburban area. While many of the former work in a wide area from global to regional ranges, many of the latter work on a local scale.
Second, the case study of Tama City in Tokyo's western suburbs yielded the following results. 1) There are more married female staff who support the daily activities of non-profit organizations, and in many cases they work part time or as volunteers. This result illustrates the effect of the gender division of labor. 2) Contemporary local non-profit organizations have been developed based on city-wide sentakuen (selective networks of personal contacts related to their own residence) formed over time. These points are especially characteristic of suburbs. Therefore, these results explain why many local non-profit organizations are in suburban areas, especially Tokyo's western suburbs. Moreover, considering, all results at the actor level, it appears that the spatial distribution of local non-profit organizations reflects the socioregional structure of the Tokyo metropolitan area.

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Taiwan, which joined the World Trade Organization in 2002, has been working hard to restructure its agriculture in an attempt to increase the international competitiveness of agricultural commodities. This paper examines Taiwan's mango industry in the globalizing economy and possible ways of expanding the export of mangos to Japan, a niche market for Taiwanese growers. Intensive field studies were conducted in Yujing village, Tainan county which is Taiwan's major mango-producing region.
Following the end of World War II, the Irwin mango was successfully introduced from Florida, USA, which promoted the commercial production of mangos. However, Yujing now faces such problems as the aging of farmers, shortage of successors, dependence on temporary labor, increasing production costs, and low market prices due to overproduction. Cooperative marketing by farmers' associations is not functioning well. In addition, Taiwan's mangos, due to high production and delivery costs, are facing severe competition with products from other parts of the world in the Japanese market.
Under such circumstances, a sustained market outlet needs to be established which could guarantee a stable market price so that farmers can continue to engage in mango production and to receive stable incomes. To achieve this, it is necessary to reinforce farmers' cooperative marketing as it protects farmers by stabilizing market prices and saving labor while ensuring the quantity required for export by cooperative sorting and grading of fruit. Farmers' cooperative marketing will also play an important role in coping with such problems as the aging of farmers, shortage of successors, and management of fields owned by elderly farmers.
To maintain and develop mango exports to Japan, a system of traceability needs to be established as it is required in the Japanese market. Guaranteed purchase prices and contract farming may stabilize the supply of mangos. In the Japanese market, Taiwan also needs to enhance the value of its mangos with safety and quality. The price of Taiwan's mangos is lower than that of the same variety produced in Okinawa and Miyazaki Prefecture, Japan, and therefore, it would be possible for Taiwan to expand the export of mangos to Japan targeting general consumers. As Taiwan's agricultural products, including mangos, have difficulties in competing in the international market, one method of increasing competitiveness is to establish a brand targeting a niche market. The strategy of production and marketing plays a key role in surviving in the global market.

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Several small oligotrophic wetlands formed by seepage water (spring-fed wetlands) are found in hill lands in Japan. This paper discusses the relationships among the vegetation, topography, and sediments in these spring-fed wetlands based on investigation of eight study sites in the Owari Hills and Chita Hills, central Japan. The investigated wetlands were classified into two types (valley-floor type and hillside-slope type) on the basis of the topography off their locations. The study also examined the distribution of the sediment thickness and vegetation in belt transects set in each study site. The sediment was thick in the valley-floor type and thin in the hillside-slope type. Moliniopsis japonica dominated in the valley-floor type, while Rhynchospora species dominated in the hillside-slope type. However, there were some small, thick parts of sediment like round mounds found on hillside-slope type, and M. japonica dominated there. These results suggest that vegetation distribution is closely related to sediment thickness in spring-fed wetlands, and topography affects vegetation distribution indirectly through the control of the sediment thickness. Moreover, it was recognized that many types of sediment existed, forming layers in these spring-fed wetlands.

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This paper examines the economic and social effects of the Chuncheon Mime Festival (CMF). Unlike other festivals sponsored by local governments in the Republic of Korea, the CMF was initiated by the private sector and did not originate from the sociohistorical and cultural characteristics of Chuncheon and the surrounding area. However, because the CMF was designated as a “cultural and tourist festival” by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the city council increased financial support for it under a regional development strategy and simultaneously sought to commercialize it among tourists through place marketing, even though its contribution to the local economy has not been great. In this process, tension arose between the Chuncheon City Council and the festival organizers. The council asked the CMF organizers to make it into a mass-oriented program for place marketing, while the organizers saw the festival purely as a showcase for the performing arts. However, the organizers eventually developed new programs for the general public and tried to comply with the council's desire to utilize the CMF as part of a regional development strategy. Those efforts were successful. Although the CMF organizers have attempted to popularize the festival among local residents, the community has not completely accepted it yet because local people do not participate actively in the performances.

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