ESD Projects in Japanese Schools and in Non-Formal Education in Japan

As the country that proposed the “Decade of Education for Sustainable Development” (DESD), unique and diverse ESD efforts have been made in Japan. Japanese school education provides ESD-related issue-based education such as environmental education, human rights education, education for international understanding, and dietary education. In higher education, many universities have placed ESD in their curricula by setting up faculties, graduate schools, and/or courses related to environmental education. In non-formal education, ESD activities have been promoted as part of sustainable community development. Especially, nature schools, which have been developed their environmental education activities, based on the rural villages are expected to be an important player for the local community revitalization. At present, many of the local cities in Japan are becoming unsustainable due to depopulation, aging society and environmental devastation, and ESD is urgently needed there. In this sense, ESD is going to play a major role in sustainable community development into the future.