In April, funding from the Japanese government was confirmed for Janet Dwyer to lead a 5-year international project to co-develop new approaches to sustaining and revitalising cultural landscapes in the global north, through comparison and exchange between the UK, Europe and Japan. The project: ‘Satoyama reconnections’ (SATOCONN), is working with local communities and longstanding indigenous knowledge of positive human-nature interaction in six Living Labs spanning Sami territory in Sweden, the Bernese Oberland in Switzerland, Peneda Gerês in northern Portugal, Dartmoor and the south-west uplands of England, and Sado island and Lake Biwa hillside communities in Honshu, Japan.
Janet will work under a joint appointment between CCRI/University of Gloucestershire and the Research Institute for Humanities and Nature (RIHN) in Kyoto, to manage the project, in close partnership with Lois Mansfield, senior CCRI associate, and Chris Short. The project will train up a community of early-career and postgraduate researchers and is aiming to influence global policies and understanding in the context of the CBD ’30 by 30’ target, to ensure that local and sensitive indigenous management is recognised, sustained and effectively empowered to support biodiversity and climate goals, into the future.
Jasmine Black, former Research Assistant at CCRI, is also a co-investigator in the project, now working at Niigata University in Japan which is managing the Sado island Living Lab. Other key partners include Katsue Fukamachi, Tobias Haller, Camilla Sandström, Angela Lomba, Mitsuyo Toyoda, Gaku Mitsuma, Mai Kobayashi, Sophie Devienne and Davy McCracken: a great interdisciplinary team with considerable knowledge.
