Japan's 2009 Report on Environment, Sound Material-Cycling, and Biodiversity Released in English

On December 4, 2009, Japan's Ministry of the Environment (MOE) released the English edition of its "Annual Report on the Environment, the Sound Material-Cycle Society and the Biodiversity in Japan 2009," to make Japan's environmental initiatives more widely known to the world. The 70-page report was handed out to participants at the United Nations Climate Change Conference 2009 (COP15) held in Copenhagen the same month.

The report was first published in 1969 as the White Paper on Environmental Pollution by the Environmental Agency (current MOE). The document then became an annual publication in 1972, when it was renamed the Annual Report on the Environment (known as the Environment White Paper). In June 2009, the white paper was bound up with two other reports into one book, the Annual Report on the Sound Material-Cycle Society (annually published since 2001) and the Annual Report on Biodiversity (first published in 2009). An abridged version of the new report is also available, which uses many graphs, tables, and illustrations to make the contents more readable and easily understandable. The English edition is a translation of this abridged report.

The report stresses the importance of building an environmentally and economically sustainable society, especially in these times of global economic recession and as the world pursues economic strategies that produce environmental benefits. It also emphasizes the point that Japan now has an opportunity to become a leading nation in moving the world's values and initiatives in such directions.

The full text of the report is available at http://www.env.go.jp/en/wpaper/2009/fulltext.pdf.

Annual Report on the Environment, the Sound Material-Cycle Society and the Biodiversity 2009
http://www.env.go.jp/en/wpaper/2009/

Posted: 2010/03/17 06:00:15 AM