Mitsuyo Toyoda

This paper examines possible applications of ideas and methods of Philosophy for Children (P4C) to workshop-style environmental education conducted in Sado, Japan. The theme of the workshop is the preservation of toki (the crested ibis) and the local community development. As a result of the success in new breeding, it was determined that the toki, which once became extinct in Japan, would be released to the natural environment in 2008. In order to achieve its successful settlement, local residents are expected to participate in natural and social restoration. Since children will take over this task in the future, they need to be familiar with this issue and to be equipped with necessary skills to think for themselves what can be done towards the betterment of personal, natural, andsocial well-being. As an approach to children’s education, a series of school workshop has been conducted in Sado. The focuses of this education are to introduce the value of thinking for themselves about the issues of toki, environment, and community, and to provide them with some of the necessary skills. A strict timeframe, however, is a crucial difficulty when applying P4C to the school workshop. The workshop must be conducted in two hours (or less), and can be given only one time at each school. In this paper, I consider how it is possible to incorporate the process of thinking into the school workshop and to examine the value of thinking-oriented environmental education. Based on the responses from the students and the teachers, I argue that the integration of P4C ideas into theschool workshop has been meaningful for providing different and creative learning opportunities for them.

The abandoment of the use of local natural resources has caused serious ecological degradation in some parts of the world. Such situations highlight the importance of a democratic approach to the revitalization of commons. According to traditional systems of resource management, a clear boundary should be set between users and non-users: a closed community has been regarded as the basis for appropriate governance of resources. To the contrary, when restoring commons, it is more important to create an open platform that gathers people from various backgrounds and generations and to consider together possible means for sustainable resource governance. In terms of field research in environmental restoration conducted on Sado Island, Japan, there are three conditions that need to be stressed in the process of establishing a collaborative platform: accepting a variety of participants, maintaining a fair and neutral stance, and respecting various sorts of knowledge. In addition to these conditions, cultivating the ability to engage in adaptive rule making is crucial to the realization of an autonomous community for sustainable resource governance.