Bioeconomic research aims at developing a more resource-efficient and sustainable society that uses renewable biological resources to produce food, materials, and energy. Economic supremacy causes many problems, such as global warming, depletion of fossil fuels and natural resources, and loss of biodiversity. In order to build a more sustainable society with resource efficiency, it is necessary to discuss the institutional framework, which includes environmental assessment, environmental monitoring, biological resource management, human resources management, and education. This chapter examined the effectiveness of forest-river-ocean nexus-based education for community development (FRONE) in encouraging the sustainable use of biological resources. Combined with the adaptive cycle, FRONE is considered to have the potential to promote the sustainable use of biological resources. In the future, further bioeconomic research from the point of view of the education system will be needed.
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Japan is an island country that includes approximately 6800 islands, and has a privileged natural environment with bountiful forest, rivers, and ocean. Traditionally, people living in the islands have taken care of these natural environments over generations. Therefore, biodiversity has been maintained by traditional farming societies, forest societies, and fishing communities through a sustainable way of maintenance and the utilization of biological resources. This tradition has also benefited the Japanese society since ancient times. People could live a stable life without worrying about resource depletion, which laid the foundation for Japan’s subsequent cultural development.
However, after the high-growth period from the mid-1950s to the early 1970s, its inhabitants’ awareness of the coexistence of nature and human beings has been seriously diluted. Dilution of the consciousness caused various environmental problems concerning the connection between nature and human beings (Ministry of the Environment, 2016). Some examples are widespread abandonment of farmland, decrease of animals and plants species in Satoyama, water pollution, and severe climate change.
In order to solve these problems, some fishermen and local residents in northern Japan worked together to make people re-recognize the forest-river-ocean nexus (Wakana, 2001). In 2016, the Japanese Ministry of the Environment announced proposals on the nexus between forest-river-ocean and human beings. The proposal stated that the connection is essential to the establishment of a sustainable society. Such society is featured with environmental, social, and economic sustainability, low-carbon, resource-circulating, and natural symbiosis.
It is well known that the Great East Japan Earthquake caused enormous damage to coastal areas. Since then, eight years have passed, and construction of coastal levees and housing area are still underway. Besides, other problems should not be neglected, such as depopulation and aging (Yamaguchi, 2009), shortage of heirs (Ogaki & Saio, 2014), population decrease (Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, 2015), and discrepancy between government and citizen's opinion (Hirata, 2013). Ooe (2014) advocated the necessity of “endogenous reconstruction,” in which local people utilize their capacities and contribute to the reconstruction voluntarily. How to realize endogenous reconstruction? Ooe pointed out that to accomplish the restoration and reconstruction of a community-based society, the combination of intrinsic and external power, and the inheritance of traditional and local knowledge are essential. This means to cherish the relationship between people and people, and people and nature.