Many Japanese NGOs work voluntarily for tree-planting in Inner Mongolia. Their activities are introduced on the Internet and the main idea these websites bring across, is an image of the spiritual mind to fight with the desertification known as one of the most mentioned environmental issues in the relevant regions. Some of the NGO's also proclaim the successful process of their own activities. However, they rarely show the area of the afforestation, the number of trees planted or any other data on the possible effect of the projects exactly. It may be possible to say that the lack of clear indication of data implies the lack of ecological evaluation on their activities. Furthermore, we can point that their method and knowledge of tree-planting are quite different from the ones of indigenous people. Japanese green volunteers often apply their Japanese local experience and knowledge to the nature in the arid circumstances. Therefore, it is highly disputable whether those are appropriate to the very different ecosystem and community. While the volunteer activity may give priority over “good-will” more than the actual evaluation in general, any activity related to the environmental issues, especially on desertification must be assessed before implementation due to the irreversibility of the environmental consequences.

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In modem times Europe developed with a movement involving two motives, one of which is self-expansion toward the outside and another, in contrast to the former, inward self-reflection. In the process of ‘modernization’ forced by her, Non-European world couldn’t but repeat or imitate her lust for dominion of others and of nature as well. Thus it is nothing but the ‘dialectic of desire’ settling itself in modern societies that caused the environmental crisis now. Environmental Ethics is of no use for resolving environmental problems for the reason that it still maintains the dualistic scheme “man vs. nature” which has been taking the initiative of Western development. We must elaborate therefore new ethical principles based on the notion of ‘milieu’(fûdo) expressing the idea of unity of nature and man, instead of that of ‘environment’ remaining in dualism. Mesology(fûdogaku, study of milieu) insists with regard to ‘landscape’ that ways of seeing the world vary in different localities. It is not the case of ‘perception’ regarded as common to all people. From the standpoint of mesology, destruction of landscape is no less than negation of human existence. So, urgent mesological task lies in protection of original landscape(genfûkei) or, in necessary cases, in its creation.

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Deforestation is a hot topic in current global environmental discourse. The uncontrolled expansion of palm oil plantations is the cause of this deforestation in Malaysia. Several international projects have been undertaken to tackle this problem. For the environmental activist, there are many reasons to implement forest conservation projects, for example to counter global warming or to establish a sustainable society. However, an important question that we must not fail to ask is, what are the needs and desires of the local people? The purpose of this study is to see what the people living in the area of nature conservation projects think about both the project and the oil palm industry, and to define the gap between the insight of activists and locals. This study focuses on the case of a small village located alongside the Kinabatangan Riverin Berneo. We see in this case study that local people are concerned primarily about their financial status, and place nature conservation after this.

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The present study is the examination of telling The Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake to the next generation. Authors conducted fieldwork at Disaster Reduction and Human Renovation Institution in Kobe and analyzed collaborative remembering between narrators and audiences. In the classification of their narratives, they were divided into 3 groups, consisting of victims’ stories, rescue corps’ stories and the stories about natural sciences. We distributed the questionnaires to visitors before and after their visits and examined their images of the Kobe earthquake. While ‘house’, ‘dead person’ and ‘big earthquake’ were listed up before their visits, ‘living person’ and ‘volunteer’ were picked up after their visits. They showed that visitors interested in the life and helping each other by visit. Besides, we divided victims’ stories into 2 groups to examine collaborative remembering. One was the story that they emphasized the concrete wisdoms about disaster prevention; the other was the story that they emphasized the importance of the life and helping each other. We examined the difference of audiences’ reactions from theoretical views called ‘mastery’ and ‘appropriation’.

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Volunteering attracts people’s attention these days and this trend concerns modern and postmodern human history. In addition, the fundamental existence of human life should be reexamined through the expansion of volunteering and this creates new relationships among human beings toward a new era. In this article, we discuss the following issues on volunteering: Historical perspective of volunteer activity and its contemporary significance, problems with volunteering, i.e., motivation, sharing of understanding about social problems, spontaneity, transformation of division of labor, and usefulness of the volunteer. Furthermore, a tentative assumption for community education, which has strong tie with volunteers, was proposed.

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Study tours to developing countries organized by Japanese higher education institutions are on the rise. These study tours are conducted in collaboration with different international cooperation agencies including United Nations agencies, Japan International Cooperation Agency and Non-Governmental Organizations. Study tours offer different experiential learning opportunities to students and from higher education institution’s academic point of view, these study tours greatly benefit students. Through direct contact and experience in/with developing countries, students can correspond to knowledge and information with better understanding, which can possibly lead to students’ further active learning and action. On the other hand, study tours can possibly be a burden for international cooperation agencies whose missions are very different from the academic mission of higher education institutions. The paper examines the needs for study tours among various parties as well as the capacity of international cooperation agencies in cooperating with higher education institutions to plan and carry out study tours. It will then delve into how study tours can be organized so that both higher education institutions and international cooperation agencies can benefit from the tours.

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In Japan, there are many persons who did not go through the compulsory education system. It is said that there may be as much as 1,700,000 persons in this situation. Governmental Educational Administration guarantees the right of learning of such persons through the settlement of 35 secondary evening schools (yakanchugakko), mainly in the metropolitan area. 21 Volunteer-based organizations are covering other areas but it appears that nevertheless uncovered areas are remaining. Until now, there was no extensive data about the precise activities of these volunteer-based schools. Considering that such information is important for a clear understanding of the development potential and problems of such volunteer organizations, this survey means to procure an extensive report of their activities.

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