Special Report LAST UPDATE July 13, 2009
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June 17, 2009 Onboard Environmental School – Learning to Achieve a Sustainable Lifestyle and Achieve Happiness
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Before visiting Iceland, the Environmental School culminated in an Earth Day celebration, largely coordinated by Peace Boat’s onboard eco-team. Pictured are participants taking part in a seminar on sustainable living.

Japan is generally recognized internationally as an ecologically aware nation with an environmentally focused agenda with respect to waste and greenhouse emissions, yet the reality of the situation is somewhat different when compared to Europe and, in particular, Scandinavia. As part of its extensive tour of Western Europe, with particular focus on the Baltic nations, Peace Boat has coordinated a variety of exchange programmes in port as well as invited six Guest Educators onboard to learn about the differences in attitudes of Japan and the rest of the world with respect to ecological awareness and sustainable development as part of its onboard Environmental School.

Why is Japan falling behind on these matters of environmentalism? In order to learn about the issues and future of these matters, the six Guest Educators conducted seminars, lectures and special workshops where participants received the opportunity to study and research the issues and consider how they can make changes in their own lives and around them to help rectify the situation and affect change, not just onboard but also to help contribute to the environmental movement in Japan.
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In addition to the Guest Educators, a team of International Students from various Baltic nations joined Peace Boat to workshop together on ways to implement ideas regarding sustainable development.

More so than just learning about sustainable lifestyles and the implications of climate change, Peace Boat’s Environmental School hopes to draw people's attention to the deeper issue of the true wellbeing of people. This is through learning not just about the environmental policies of the European and Scandinavian countries, but also their social and education policies and ways of thinking.

Programme Co-ordinator Onodera Ai believes that true happiness stems from living a lifestyle of health and sustainability, and that being environmentally aware and changing your lifestyle to a more ecologically-friendly one is inter-related to one's own personal happiness. Ai feels that the onboard programme, coupled with visits to the Scandinavian countries to witness first hand the mechanics of their societies, will give participants a valuable insight on how to achieve this type of lifestyle and genuine wellbeing that comes from it. Thus, the main emphasis of the programme is not just to accumulate knowledge but to learn how to become a 'change maker.' This change refers not to a grand scale but rather to change on a personal level, so that participants can introduce the lifestyle changes they have seen into their own daily lives.
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Yoshioka Atsushi gave a variety of lectures to participants, ranging from the wonders of UNESCO World Heritage Sights to his personal philosophies on Slow Life.
Long time advocate of Peace Boat, Yoshioka Atsushi, joined Peace Boat from Greece until Spain. In 2001, after spending many years working with UNESCO, Mr Yoshioka re-examined his core values and embarked on a new initiative as co-founder of ‘Café Slow’, an organic café based in the outer suburbs of Tokyo that celebrates and promotes ‘Slow Life’.

According to Mr Yoshioka, Slow Life is ‘taking the time to re-establish the connection between nature and yourself, but not only this, to live an enjoyable lifestyle also…how can we improve life whilst maintaining environmental sustainability? We need to change the lifestyle itself!’ Café Slow was among the first organic cafés established in Japan and uses only free trade produce. It also has a strong social agenda and provides a platform for the local community to come together and talk about and become active in themes such as sustainability and fair trade. Mr Yoshioka told participants how his ideas were nothing new, but merely a reversion to the past: natural, simple living. He hopes to achieve this through education and the reduction of consumption. ‘If we are not happy within the present system, then what’s the point? We need to avoid the convenient, fast life and adopt a slower approach.’
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Edahiro Junko is a passionate environmentalist who hopes to effect change towards sustainable development through educational seminars and working with policy makers.
Edahiro Junko, onboard Peace Boat from Greece to Sweden, devoted herself to learning English when she moved to the US with her husband at the age of 29. Within two years of intense study she had mastered the language and she began her career as an interpreter and translator. Ms Edahiro has translated around 20 books, including Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, and has also worked in an advisory position to Japanese Prime Minister Aso on issues of environmental conservation. She feels that governments need to provide the public and private sectors with incentives to adopt progressive sustainable policies in order to effect the necessary change. Ms Edahiro told participants how Japan has the public consciousness and necessary technology to facilitate a sustainable society, and all that is missing is the system and policy to initiate the change,

Ms Edahiro also told participants of the importance of considering general happiness in the equation of sustainable development and economic change. ‘People are under the impression that the economy needs to be constantly increasing, even if people aren’t becoming happier or better off. Why? We need to look at the bigger picture and consider genuine progress.’
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Takami Sachiko was born and raised in Japan but now lives in Sweden where she works for NGO The Natural Step. Here she is pictured discussing Sweden’s social policies in an open seminar with participants.
Upon arriving in Sweden in 1974 after spending some time in the US, Takami Sachiko was shocked to see how different two western societies could be, in particularly with respect to Sweden’s progressive social policies such as the support it provides for working mothers and for students, considering youth and education as the future of the nation. In Sweden, Ms Takami works for The Natural Step, a non-profit organization that works towards creating a sustainable human society. The Natural Step is an advisory and educational company that works with people inside organizations to help them make informed and sustainable decisions about procedures, actions and future developments within their company. Ms Takami has authored numerous books regarding sustainable development in society, including The Rule Book of Japanese Reconstruction.

En route to Sweden, Ms Takami conducted seminars with participants about how Sweden has developed into one of the most socially liberal and equal societies in the world whilst simultaneously employing ecologically sustainable policies, with ‘the aim to handover to the next generation a society where all the major environmental problems have been solved.’ The Swedish national culture is based upon independence and importance of education – seen as the security of the future of the nation.

Natural Step Japan (Takami’s Official Homepage) – www.tnsij.org
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Ohashi Maki conducting an aromatherapy massage workshop with participants, a practice that is becoming increasingly popular in Japanese hospitals. (Photo Courtesy of Nakamura Mitsutoshi.
Ohashi Maki was a newscaster with the Japanese television station Fuji TV; however she felt that her job wasn’t allowing her to realise her full potential as a communicator. She left her position at Fuji TV and moved to the United Kingdom where studied phytotherapy (the study of the use of extracts from natural origin as medicines or health-promoting agents), and since received her certified aroma therapist licence from the International Federation of Aroma Therapists. Ms Ohashi is now based in Amsterdam where she is advancing her studies whilst also promoting her own organic aroma oil company. She maintains her involvement in the Japanese media and still works as a writer, translator and radio ,personality as well as being involved in a variety of environmentally-minded television programmes and conferences. When in Japan she also works at hospitals, employing her aromatherapy as an additional treatment to Western medicine.

Onboard Peace Boat, Ms Ohashi gave a variety of workshops about her life in the media, as well as providing participants with a sound insight into the power and benefits of aromatherapy – conducting a make-your-own aroma oil workshop as well as an aroma massage session.
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Takemura Shinichi explains to participants the concept of his Tangible Earth and the potential educational benefits it could bring.
An avid traveller, social anthropologist and university professor, Takemura Shinichi has a very modest, laid back, yet realistic approach to life. Having travelled to more than 70 countries during his 20s, he witnessed many amazing sights around the world of both natural and human beauty, and in doing so developed a strong connection with the earth as a holistic entity.

Mr Takemura had been developing various media interfaces and designs that were interconnected with aspects of the earth’s mechanics when he conceived his idea of a ‘Tangible Earth’, a model scale, interactive globe that is connected to a cornucopia of real time information such as weather and climate, tidal currents, pollution levels, climate change and ocean temperatures, amongst much more. He conceived the idea so that he could share his experience and sensation of connectedness to the earth with others and hopes to see it used as an educational tool around the world to help children realise their interconnectedness with the world as an entire entity. Mr Takemura has no technological or programming skills however, he pursued his concept to the end and co-ordinated a group of specialists to build his concept, which was first presented at the G8 Toyako Summit last year. Onboard Peace Boat for the first time, Mr Takemura shared his views of the preciousness of the earth and the natural miracles that occur within it everyday. – www.tangible-earth.com/en