Vegetated coastal habitats - mangrove forests, salt-marshes and seagrass meadows - for blue carbon sink purposes are very important ecosystems. They provide valuable ecosystem functions, including a large carbon sink capacity and very rich biodiversity for human sustenance. Mangrove forests are considered bio indicators among marine-river estuary ecosystems in sub-tropical and tropical regions of the world. It is a unique habitat for several fresh and salt water species. The present research is aimed at studying the carbon accumulation and food cycle system in a rehabilitated mangrove site in southern Thailand. The rehabilitation of mangroves at abandoned shrimp ponds in Nakhon Si Thammarat, southern Thailand, has been taking place since 1998. Almost seven million mangrove trees have been planted over 1200 ha of abandoned shrimp ponds and new mud flats. It is observed that the mangrove plantation increases the population of species like crab, shellfish, shrimp and fish at the rehabilitated mangrove site. The food cycle system of the rehabilitated mangrove site and its surrounding mangrove forests is being studied. Stable isotopes such as δ¹⁵N and δ¹³C are monitored as a primary parameter to study the food cycle system in the mangrove forests and the coast around the mangrove forests. It has been found that the δ¹⁵N content in living organisms gradually accumulates from small phytoplankton to large fish in the food cycle system. The δ¹³C content in living organisms also gradually accumulates from phytoplankton to large fish in the food cycle system. The analysis data reveals that carnivorous fish enter the 12 to 13th stage of the food cycle system, which is triggered by the fall of mangrove leaves in the rehabilitated mangrove forest. Carbon portion of the soil also increased at the rehabilitated mangrove planting site. The rehabilitated mangrove forest will act as a sink source for atmospheric carbon and develop rich biodiversity of a marine-river estuary ecosystem.

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The authors belong to a corporation and a regional university which jointly promote the industry-university-government collaboration in Shimane Prefecture, Japan. The corporation has been manufacturing and distributing “Plant Extracted Minerals (health food, etc.)” using regional resources such as wild grass, tree leaves, and seaweed as raw materials. In this paper, we present a proposal to revitalize the regional economy as direct practicing entities, which is constructed by utilizing the above-mentioned regional resources. It is important to note that the proposal includes the creation of new businesses in hilly and mountainous areas as well as coastal areas. At first, applications of the “Plant Extracted Minerals” were developed by industry-university collaboration. Secondly, a form of “community” was established for harvesting and primary processing of the regional resources (wild grass, tree leaves, and seaweed), and then this community led to commercialization and new business creation. As a result, two business fields (functional feed and food processing) were evaluated as being promising markets in terms of both demand and revenue. Furthermore, in hilly and mountainous areas as well as coastal areas, a series of new businesses was created to secure raw materials. From these results, it is suggested that the proposed plan has a high potential for realizing a revitalization of the regional economy in hilly and mountainous areas as well as coastal areas.

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Our previous research has found that primary production in Tokyo Bay has been dependent on a huge amount of dissolved iron transport with fulvic acid from the Yoro river and Obitsu river basins. The estuary of the Obitsu river is unique as a natural tideland, “Banzu tidekand”, in Tokyo Bay, and the existence of the tideland is most important for its chemical buffering capacities and ecosystems as woodland for fish breeding in Tokyo Bay. In this study, we aimed to elucidate the interrelationship between vegetation and nutrients containing fulvic acid-iron in the estuarine tideland of the Obitsu river. The vegetation of reed plant, “Phragmites australis”, depends heavily on the level of site tide resulting from a minute rise in altitude. The net production of reed plants in this tideland was evaluated to be 170 g m^－2 as annual carbon. The content of dissolved organic carbon, mainly fulvic carbon, and also iron in the soil solution increased in subordination to the amount of reed vegetation. As a consequence, the fulvic-iron complexes produced in soil leached into a neighbor creek, and led to an increase in production of marine plankton.

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We assessed the influence that crystal particle size of the salt on cooking processing using Japanese radish by measuring the chloride ion concentration, texture and change of the taste. The differences in particle sizes affected chloride ion concentration by 15 min, but the influence was at quite a low level over 30 min after sprinkling salt on the radish test pieces. No differences of physical property in salt with various particle sizes were recognized. However, differences in strength of the saltiness and pickled condition of Japanese radish were detectable by 15 min after sprinkling salt on radish test pieces. These results suggest that particle sizes of the salt affect the taste of the dish in a short cooking period not but a long cooking period.

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