Takeuchi Kazuhiko, President of the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES), has been selected to receive the 2021 MIDORI Academic Prize, which will be presented at the MIDORI Academic Prize awarding ceremony to be held on Friday, 23 April.
The MIDORI Academic Prize is awarded by the Prime Minister to individuals who have made outstanding academic achievements in the field of ‘greenery’, including research and development of technologies related to plants, forests, green space, landscaping, and nature conservation in Japan.
The award recognises President Takeuchi’s achievements in "practicing landscape ecology and developing it into sustainability science, to realise a society in harmony with nature”. The Cabinet Office outlines his contributions as follows: In addition to establishing the field of "landscape ecology" by proposing a comprehensive regional environmental management planning method based on objective and quantitative evaluation of environmental conservation functions, he has also promoted research on the structure of SATOYAMA landscapes and mechanisms for maintaining biodiversity, and led the "SATOYAMA Initiative". Through this, President Takeuchi has communicated both domestically and internationally the importance of the conservation and utilisation of secondary natural ecosystems. Moreover, he has shared research through developing the field of "sustainability science", which aims to reconstruct sustainable socioecological systems, and has supported the social implementation of his research by providing academic support for the FAO’s (Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations) Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS) recognition. With these achievements and his outstanding ability to disseminate information, he has led research toward the realisation of a society where people and nature can coexist in harmony, and has greatly contributed to scaling up activities that foster sustainable local environments across various regions. (excerpt from the Cabinet Office’s website).
Upon accepting the award, IGES President Takeuchi stated,
“I am very grateful to have received this award, which recognises the holistic and policy-oriented research I have accumulated over the years. I would like to use this award as an opportunity to make further contributions to the advancement of global/natural environmental policy in Japan and abroad.”