Perspectives on Sustainability

Two brief presentations on the concept of the Humanosphere, by staff members of the Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Kyoto University

A Sustainable Humanosphere Approach to Innovative Southeast Asian Studies
Prof. Yasuyuki KONO, deputy director CSEAS

 From 2007 to 2012, the Center of Southeast Asian Studies, together with several graduate schools and research institutes of Kyoto University, carried out a programme entitled “In Search of a Sustainable Humanosphere in Asia and Africa.” The present talk introduces the conceptual framework, major outcomes and their implications to Southeast Asian studies. Humans have been regenerated within the humanosphere. The humanosphere is an integrated whole of geosphere, biosphere and human society. Each has a logic of its own. Humans only partially understand the logic of geosphere and biosphere, and human society can only partially control them. The logic of geosphere underscores the logic of biosphere, and both in turn underscore the logic of human society. This order is historically loosely sequential.

The sustainability of human society depends on the sustainability of geosphere and biosphere, and, to a lesser extent, vice versa. Human progress had been driven by the effort to secure, expand and sustain the humanosphere, until some centuries ago the productivity-driven path emerged in Europe and East Asia. Since the industrial revolution and the growth of the fossil-fuel based world economy, the humanosphere-driven path has retreated to the peripheral status. In designing a globally sustainable path, we should rehabilitate the humanosphere-driven path, and apply modern technology and institutions to develop the sustainability of the global environment, especially in the tropics. This will be a new agenda for Southeast Asian studies.

Resume
After graduating from the University of Tokyo and obtaining a doctoral degree in agriculture, Yasuyuki KONO joined the Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Kyoto University, in 1987 and expanded his research fields to natural resources management, rural livelihood studies, and human-nature relations in Southeast Asia.  He has worked on research projects on rain-fed agriculture in Northeast Thailand; the agricultural development process of the Chao Phraya, Red, and Mekong deltas; mountain agriculture and forest conservation, including shifting cultivation in Laos and Vietnam; coastal ecosystems and fisheries in Thailand; rural livelihood transition in Cambodia; peatland management in Indonesia; and sustainable humanosphere studies. Through these projects, he has sought to highlight the complexities of the development process and identify the major drivers of change in rural societies. He has also sought to elucidate the livelihood rationality of rural communities with a view to promoting best practices of rationality-based natural resources management.

Major Publications
Ecological Destruction, Health, and Development: Advancing Asian Paradigms, Kyoto University Press and Trans Pacific Press, 2004 (co-edited)

Sustainable Agro-resources Management in the Mountainous Region of Mainland Southeast Asia, Special Issue of Southeast Asian Studies 41(4), 2004 (co-edited).

Small-scale Livelihoods and Natural Resources Management in Marginal Areas of Monsoon Asia, Bishen Singh Mahendra Pal Singh, 2006 (co-edited).

Agency, opportunity and risk: Commercialization and the human-nature relationships in Laos, Special Issue of Southeast Asian Studies 47(3), 2009 (co-edited).

Mechanisms of land use change in Mainland Southeast Asia, Special Issue of Southeast Asian Studies 47(4), 2010 (co-edited).

The Development Path of a Rain-fed Paddy Village in Northeast Thailand
Kazuo WATANABE, research fellow, CSEAS

This talk will discuss the development of a specific rain-fed paddy village in Northeast Thailand, during the recent high economic growth period in the country.  The speaker documents many decades of rain-fed expansion of agricultural land, evaluates land consolidation after the 1980s, and analyzes income changes. The study is based on GIS and socio-economic analyses during a period of forty years (1963-2005) of interdisciplinary field observation in the village, mainly carried out by CSEAS staff.  He concludes that people who stay in this area choose and develop technologies for rice production that are not market, but subsistence oriented. These technologies provide low, but stable production and enough rice for house hold consumption. This development is supported by off-farm income. Especially after the 1990s, opportunities to earn income in cities increased considerably, due to the economic development in Thailand. People subsequently invested the income they earned from off-farm job opportunities to improve their rice production even further. The coexistence of food security from subsistence rice production, and cash income acquisition from off-farm sectors is an important strategy for people in this area. It is markedly different from a totally market oriented development, and can be evaluated positively bearing in mind a sustainable agricultural system in peri-urban areas in an industrial society.     

Resume
Dr. Watanabe received his Ph.D. (Agriculture) from Gifu University, United Graduate School of Agricultural Sciences in 2008.  He subsequently joined the Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Kyoto University.  He was a Researcher of Scientific Research (October 2008-September 2009), a Junior Research Fellow (October 2009-March 2010), a Researcher of Scientific Research, Research Institute for Sustainable Humanosphere (July to December, 2010) and a Researcher of Global COE (April 2010-March 2012).  His research background is agronomy and geo informatics, and his main research field is rain-fed paddy fields in Northeast Thailand and Laos, especially focusing on dynamics of land use, rice balance and agricultural technology as well as rural society. He expanded his research area to Indonesia and Malaysia after he joined the Humanosphere project in 2010. Through this project he conducted field survey about peatland ecosystems in Sumatra, Indonesia, and developed forest monitoring methods by Remote Sensing image analysis.

Major publications
WATANABE, K. and HOSHIKAWA, K. (2005): Development of Rain-fed Paddy Field in Don Daeng Village, Northeast Thailand during the Last 70 Years, J. Agric. Meteorol., 60 (5), 973-976.

MIYAGAWA, S., TSUJI, T., WATANABE, K. and HOSHIKAWA, K. (2006): Long-term and Spatial Evaluation of Rice Crop Performance of Rain-fed Paddy Fields in a Village of Northeast Thailand, TROPICS, 15 (1), 39-49.

Watanabe K. and Kawai S. (2011): Land Use and Biomass Monitoring to Achieve Sustainability of Peat Swamp Area, JSPS Global COE Program, The Fifth International Conference In Search of Sustainable Humanosphere in Asia and Africa, Proceedings of the Final International Conference, 323-344.