The Mitsui & Co. Environment Fund
Introduction to Grant Projects
Iwate Kodomo Kankyou Kenkyuusho
The sustainable local community model "Visualization" project
Activity grant
- Project Description
We set up equipment and run hands-on programs in which participants can sense with their five senses the connection between energy and life in the forest and wind. We create hands-on sign groups and spaces where people can see and understand the connections between things and forces here. We are involved with the designing of how to show and tell people about this. We are using images and fantasy to tell people about our model for sustainable local communities. By promoting the creation of a natural energy theme park, we hope that the number of visitors will increase and that use by researchers and groups will grow, and it will become a new place in the Tohoku region where people can learn about the resource-recycling lifestyle.
- Fields
- Energy problem
- Grant year
- FY2011 Activity Grants
- Grant term
- 1 year
April 2012 - March 2013
- Grant amount
- 4,608,000 yen
- Activity region
- Kuzumaki-chou, Iwate-gun, Iwate Prefecture, Japan

Overview of the Organization

- Representative
- Nobuo Yoshinari, Director
- Establishment
- 2001
- Establishment purpose
- To foster the "ability to live to the future" in children, we will create an organization that involves newcomers from the cities as well as children and adults from local communities, and we will position the Morikaze nature school (that was once a local node) as a new meeting place. We will practice and advocate the creation of models for local communities with such themes as "The reuse of natural energy and local resources," "Creating a places for children," and "New agricultural living."
- Main regions of project activity
- Kuzumaki-chou, Iwate-gun, Iwate Prefecture
- Staff
- 4 full-time staff members, 135 full members
- Annual operating budget
- 15.11 million yen in 2009, 9.92 million yen in 2010, 17.26 million yen in 2011
- Main activities
- An eco-school that uses the facilities of a former school, in a community of 12 households, at an altitude of 700 m. In collaboration with Kuzumaki-chou, we opened the Iwate Children's Environment Research Laboratory in 2001. With the key words of "Don't waste it" we are using permaculture techniques and are promoting the creation of facilities that can achieve a recycling-oriented way living as a means for natural energy education and ecological life education. We are seeking a new way to connect the past with the future, while keeping in mind the Northern European lifestyle and the lifestyle of the local community.