Japanese experts take innovative approach to environmental issues

Japanese experts from the Nagoya University Global COE programme are working with Lao graduate students to study agricultural management and environmentally friendly rice cultivation strategies. The Japanese team, led by Dr Tetsuzo Yasunari, the Designated Professor of the Hydrospheric Research Centre at Nagoya University, Nagoya University Geography Department Professor Dr Kohei, and Bio-agriculture graduate school head Dr Chisato Takenaka, will oversee both the Lao and foreign student's field research at Dong Khuai, Xaythany district in Vientiane. The objective of the programme led by Dr Tetsuzo Yasunari and other experts is to combine the knowledge and experience from various academic areas to develop new fields for environmental studies. Another aim is to develop th e environmental studies educational programmes available to graduate students, and to show students that the work that goes into researching environmental issues can ad dress real world problems. The experts said the pr ogramme involves clinical environmental studies which comprehensively diagnose environmental problems, basic environmental studies to address common inter-regional problems, and cooperation between humanities and science experts. The study site for 2012 will examine the influence of urbanisation, factory work, rice paddies and fishing in the floodplain area. The National Agriculture and Forest Research Institute will also exchange environmental management information with the students from Japan, Lao and China. The programme integrates environmental studies into doctoral courses from other disciplines, and provides various training opportunities - including field studies in foreign countries similar to the one undertaken at Dong Khuai. The programme aims to enhance the understanding of the relationships between human activities and the natural world by taking an interdisciplinary approach. The five year goal is to each year produce around 20 doc toral graduates within the integrated environmental studies course, publish books in English and Japanese on basic and clinical environmental studies, and create a corpus of problem solving "prescriptions" from the studies of each of the field sites.