Ocean Newsletter
No.246 November 5, 2010
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Marine Environment Conservation and Development can Save the Human Race
Hajime ISHIDA
Professor, Faculty of Environmental Design, Kanazawa University / Recipient, 3rd Annual Maritime State Distinguished Service AwardRestoration of the global environment and clean energy development are two major challenges facing mankind. Hope for solutions however are to be found in promising advances in new technologies being used in research and development of saltwater purification and marine resource energy. Coastal zone sandy beaches and port conservation and maintenance projects also contribute to national disaster prevention and trade, helping to build a base for realizing peace for the human race in the future. -
Development of Area Specific Materials Indispensable to Marine Education
Kouji AKASAKADirector, Misaki Marine Biological Station, The University of Tokyo / Director, Center for Marine Biology, The University of Tokyo
While ocean field trips are effective for marine education, most teachers have little knowledge of the ocean, and while reference materials are sold widely they are usually exhaustive in format and thus difficult to use. If area specific observation manuals were available, the ocean and organisms found there would be easier to access and could be used repeatedly as field trip experiences. With the accumulation of organism observation lists, environmental indexes could be created. If area specific materials from around the country could be brought together, an encyclopedia of Japan marine education materials would result. For the spread of marine education, area specific educational materials are indispensable.
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Ancient Cultural Exchanges in the Okhotsk Rim Region
Toshiaki KUMAKIAssociate Professor, The University of Tokyo Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology, Tokoro Research Laboratory
A unique ancient Okhotsk culture spread across the coastal regions of the Sea of Okhotsk from the fifth to the twelfth centuries. The bearers of this culture were the sea-people who gained their livelihood on the sea as well as the trading people operating between the continent and around the northern edge of the Japanese archipelago. Exchange along this route had been cut off for 6,000 years previously, but the Okhotsk culture revived that trade, thus playing an important role in the history of cultural exchange.