In recent years, many natural disasters have hit island regions. Although it is clear that disaster management in island regions requires consideration of unique factors, such as, remoteness; difficulty in sharing disaster experiences caused by the island’s remoteness; the small scale of the country. As such, “Disaster Management in Island Regions” as a development subject has rarely been discussed. This paper will focus on the uniqueness of island regions and consider what is required in developing disaster management projects for island regions. In this process, this paper will draw on examples from the Caribbean Islands, where Japan has a long history of cooperation in development projects in disaster management. Through these discussions, the objective of this paper is to take the first step towards the establishment of “Disaster Management in Island Regions” as a development subject.

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The main objective of the paper is to examine how lending to small firms in a local region by regional financial institutions has been influencing its regional economy. Small firms in a Japanese local economy have been depending heavily on bank financing rather than capital markets. This paper investigates into the relationships between of the regional economic strength and loan assets of financial institutions in Miyako and Yaeyama. We have tested the null and alternative hypotheses that there is a positive correlation between loan assets of financial institutions and economic strength in these island regions based on date obtained mainly from the Okinawa Development Finance Corporation. As the result of parameter estimations based on a simple regression analysis, the null hypothesis was rejected at the 5-10% levels of significance. Thus we conclude that there is a positive impact of loan activities on the island economies. Of course there are many points to be improved for further study on this subject including quality and scope of date, methodology and historical and cultural aspects of these islands.

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Corsica, French island in the Mediterranean Sea, was a transhumance based pastoral society of sheep and goat, however swine also was an important animal as a key of understanding traditional Corsican mountainous villages and their people called paese and paisani. Traditionally Corsican swine were divided into two types. Mannarinu was that which was fed in each household in paese. And Porcu di furestu or Porcu di banda was that which was raised collectively by the people called purcaghju, swine shepherd. Purcaghju has also a role of swine breeder, sells new born piglets to paisani and takes charge of feeding mannarini from sheep and goat shepherd or paisani. Tumbera, killing the swine is a symbolic and ritual activity of paese just before Christmas. However, Corsicans did not eat pork meat in their daily life traditionally. The pork gained by tumbera was almost transformed into preserved products for example ham and sausage. In the latter of the 20th century, two mainstreams about pork culinary and swine raising appeared in the island. The one is disappearance of a tradition caused by urbanization of eating life and decrease of purcaghji. And the other is several movements for official recognitions of “Porcu Nustrale”, Corsican original swine race and “AOC”, controlled designation of origin of several pork preserved products, coppa, lonzu and prisuttu.

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The establishment of “regional autonomy” has been much discussed lately as a community­building measure following the municipality restructuring. The question of how to organize and manage such communities to ensure their autonomy and independence becomes more important than ever. Especially in the case of island communities once run by independent municipalities and now faced with drastic lifestyle changes, their present realities and challenges in organizing and operating the regional autonomy should be unique, although only little of such reality have been known so far. This paper focused on this fact and chose the Town Planning Council (machizukuri kyogikai) consisting of bridged island communities of Kure City, Hiroshima, for analyses and discussions. The study found that the restructuring of the area was systematically and intensively implemented as an integral part of the merger-related measures under the local government and such strong initiative somehow facilitated the move towards the formation of smaller autonomies. In the process, each participating island has been allowed for diversity and flexibility reflecting values and land use unique to each community. While the achievement of the Council has been acknowledged to a certain extent, the questions of how to (1) establish a working group responsible for the implementation of policies; (2) secure the opportunity for the individual citizen to participate in the operation to maintain the openness of the organization; (3) revise the ongoing projects; and (4) revise the member constitution, should be raised as future issues. The regional autonomy covering these small islands may be required to examine the relationship between the formation of autonomies and self-discipline through administrative involvement, as well as the significance and function of the autonomy itself from the residents’ viewpoint.

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This paper discusses about the changes and the present situation of gender in the local community through the activities and the sex roles in their families as well as the awareness of the man-woman relationship of the members in the women’s association of Ōdana community at Yamato-village in Amami. The activities of Ōdana women’s association have changed between the early years since founded and today. The activities that having the character of gender­ideology leaded by the administration have taken a change to be a volunteer work revolved around the local community at present. With the changes of the times, women have taken charge the responsibilities of the events in the local community with men. What the roles imposed on women has broken through the restriction of “family management” and “shaping the morality of women’s self” now. However, from the situation that the events in the local community are conducted by the group of men, while the women cooperate with the men, and the activities like “Eliminating of Cockroach campaign” (=family management of health), “Safety Traffic campaign” (=the protection of children), “Nursing Home volunteer campaign” (=the nursing care of the elderly) that conducted by the women’s association of Yamato-village, that it can say, the activities of Ōdana women’s association are still limited in the framework of sex roles, which have not completely eliminate the influence of gender-ideology. The same changes have appeared in the families of the members of Ōdana women’s association. Husband has given assistance to wife on the housework, the child care and the education of child, and the thinking of “women are inferior to men” has been weakened at present, but the husband’s assistance is restricted in the minimum range, it is ordinary that the things of the housework, parenting and the business of children’s school are treated as the wife’s responsibilities. On the other hand, about the awareness comes from the gender-ideology that “giving the husband his proper place in the family”, certainly, there are women who object to that, however, whether woman or man, they approve of that to some extent. So it can say that the influence of gender­ideology has still remained in the family and the local community of Ōdana community.

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Nissology (island studies in Greek), which was originated in the first meeting of the International Small Island Studies Association (ISISA) held in Okinawa in 1994, centered on the theme of “island matters, islands matter,” is a new field of scientific investigation. Nissology is “a study of islands on their own terms.” Since the establishment of the ISISA. various island-related organizations, studies program and journals have emerged, including the Japan Society of Island Studies (JSIS), Institute of Island Studies, Islands and Small States Institute, Global Islands Network, Island Culture Research Centre and Kagoshima University Research Center for the Pacific Islands. Island study is very much about the implications of permeable borders. The nature of smallness, remoteness and insularity also suggest marginality, being on the edge, being out of sight and so out of mind, situations which can expose the weakness of mainstream ideas, orthodoxies and received wisdoms, while fomenting alternatives to the status quo. Any dominant paradigm is supposedly the weakest at its periphery. Consequently an approach to island studies requires what Gunnar Myrdal called a “multi- or transdisciplinary approach” which is more complex and comprehensive than the conventional approach to scientific discovery. Although the International Convention on the Law of the Sea defines an island as a “naturally formed area of land, surrounded by water,” the definition of an island is always elusive and relative. Therefore it must be defined according to the purpose of research and policy. The National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) satellite-originated Global Shoreline Database shows that there are 180,498 islands (all pieces of land greater than 0.1km2) with a total island population of 550 million or 10% of the world’s total population. Of all islands listed in the database, less than 5% are supposed to be inhabited. Although these islands occupy only 2% of the Earth’s land surface area, they account for 22% of the U.N. seats. The general characteristics of islands are illusive and relative. For instance, the Japanese islands named Takara Jima (Treasure Island) and Akuseki To (Evil Stone Island) are located side by side. Their names demonstrate the commonly-held but contradictory images of islands as both paradise and hell, or confinement (prison) and openness (utopia). Unique socio­politico-economic development problems will arise when the “island” is associated with its smallness, isolation and its location at international borders. Given the above caveat, the general characteristics. merits and demerits of small islands from the standpoints of socioeconomic development can be summarized. In this study, we focus on the taxonomy of islands based on various characteristics of the world islands such as the size and shape, distance to the mainland, shoreline index, population, income, fauna and flora. endemic species, governance, world heritages and languages.

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