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The Mitsui & Co. Environment Fund

Introduction to Grant Projects

Egao Tsunagete

Project for the establishment of a Kanto Tourism University

Activity grant

Project Description

Preparatory activities to establish a learning network (a Kanto Tourism University) while connecting in mutually complementary ways the affinities with nature, the countryside and city residents, the decline of farming and fishing villages from depopulation and an aging society, and global environmental issues, in order to lead into issue resolution. Develop and implement education on diverse interactive learning, environmental education, and sustainable regional development programs in agricultural village areas. Aims to become an educational institution in order to mutually enrich the lives and communities of visitors from cities, and locals living in these areas.

Grant year
FY2006 Activity Grants
Grant term
2 years
July 2006 - June 2008
Grant amount
7,617,000 yen
Activity region
Kanto region
People from cities reclaim idle farmland and cultivate crops in cooperation with the organization

Overview of the Organization

Hisashi Sonehara, Director
Representative
Hisashi Sonehara, Director
Established
2001
Establishment Purpose
This organization makes research proposals from the perspective of town planning and the creation of human resources for a framework of the various necessary social factors (including agriculture, forestry and fisheries, education, medical welfare, regional industry, the environment and culture) to create a regionally symbiotic citizen's network community. In addition, in order to actualize this frameworks application in community functions, it creates and manages these necessary mechanisms, and through this aims to contribute to an overall increase in benefits for people living in regional communities and Japanese society as a whole.
Main areas of activity
Kanto Region, centered on Hokuto City, Yamanashi Prefecture
Staff
4 full-time staff members, 8 part-time staff members, 18 full members
Annual operating budget
27 million yen in 2005, 31 million yen in 2006, 29 million yen in 2007
WEB site
http://www.npo-egao.net/
Recent activities
Deploys activities by connecting regional and worker networks with a base deployed in towns at the foothills of Yatsugatake/Southern Alps/Chichibu-Tama-Kai National Park for the region centered on Kanto, with the objective of creating a regionally symbiotic society for regional material cycles. With the ultimate linking of autonomous citizens, this implements an actual model project of the various issues in the fields of agriculture, environment, education, welfare, industrial structures, culture, and employment which are the concerns of modern society. Meanwhile, it attempts to resolve attendant issues by constructing a regionally symbiotic civil society. Within this, various activities are carried out which leverage revolutionary breakthroughs for the robust structuring of modern society from the viewpoint of utilization of natural resources, with tools including exchange between urban and farming communities and biomass resources in the broad sense.