Ramsar Wetlands-Rice Paddies and the Local Citizens of Osaki-Tajiri Area as a Social-Ecological System in the Context of ESD and Wetland CEPA

摘要

The midway point has arrived of the Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (DESD, 2005-2014) launched to advance the goals of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). Also, the Wetland Convention's Communication, Education and Public Awareness (CEPA) Program has begun its third 6-year program, ending in 2015. The results of these two programs, a mix of successes and obstacles, have relevance for ecological sustainability knowledge acquisition and the subsequent sustainable use or 'wise use' of natural resources within and across scales. This paper attempts to reflect on the wetland CEPA (WCEPA) program of Osaki-Tajiri, near the Kabukuri, Izu and Kejo wetlands, from the perspective of ESD. It also tries to identify ESD-related WCEPA learning processes, interrelations and interactions of the WCEPA program with the biophysical/ecological components of the wetland-paddy rice ecosystem and the outcomes, including co-benefits. Examples of activities or social-ecological interactions that portray an adaptive co-management and co-benefit approach toward sustainability are identified. Using ESD principles, WCEPA needs to improve its future activities to bring about an overall increase in resilience of the Osaki-Tajiri social-ecological system and, simultaneously, achieve its sustainability targets/goals.