Hey Japan - Inspirations from "In Harmony with Nature"

Amazing enough was that I travelled all the way from Addis to Seoul via Hong Kong and to PyeongChang for my first international meet-up on biodiversity, CBD COP12, which was funded by the Japan Biodiversity Fund channeled through the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity, but also the fact that I flew part of my 15 hours long journey reading what JICA is doing to help revive Siemen Mountains National Park- under threat UNESCO world heritage site at the northern part of Ethiopia, illustrated in the Sept/Oct 2014 edition of Ethiopian Airline’s in flight magazine -Selamta.

There is a saying in my country: one opinion breeds many others. Japan may have seemed to ring on two opposite sides of conservation to me before. TV shows that I enjoy on NHK on how the Japanese tradition developed towards “Living in Harmony with Nature” resonates in me on how a society can be so developed and lives with less harm to nature at the same time. That has to be said in favor of the lives of non-congested urban places of Japan though. The other side would be Japan’s traditionally orthodox views on whaling and Taiji dolphin massacres that have a lot of media coverage as they happen.

So I would like to take the good side and debate on the other side. Japanese tradition of living in harmony with nature is what the world has to learn from whether developed or developing societies as even the UN and the CBD claims nature has to be utilized and conserved for the economic/material needs of humanity unlike my perceptions of the intrinsic values of nature assuming that biodiversity conservation has to have the required ethical justification. I doubt if the Japanese tradition I am arguing in favor here totally abides by my opinion and many others’ as well but it still somehow matches the target and I believe also shares at least some of the values what I am up for here.

However, the unconformist traditions of dolphin and whale massacres are those that everybody or every society does in slight alteration of forms. We do the same to goats, antelopes, kudus, ibexes, apes, elephants, rhinos, sheep, cows, camels, chicken and you name it. As I list different societies the list goes further down to many species. That is also what we say when it comes to animal rights that can be translated to biodiversity rights without much alteration: you can’t speak for dog killings anywhere while devouring chicken & fish. These schizophrenic or morally contradictory ideologies have to be focused up on. Of course I do not like dolphins and whales to die but I also don’t want the whole system of agriculture and our lifestyle that dwells on one hand precious citizens of biodiversity and sentient lives on the other hand.

So my bows to Japan. Thank you for the contribution in helping me become a pioneer in Ethiopian youth participation at a global level. I hope our government learns and gives voice to local youth and communities at national biodiversity policy formulation, designing and implementation levels. Thank you also for the contribution in really protecting our “protected areas” and for showing the way on how it is done. I hope to learn more on the field level.

I also hope to one day see Ethiopia, USA, Japan, Korea and the whole planet at a developed but perfectly pro nature position that keeps our neighbors at peace.