On Thursday, July 4, 2024, we held the Inochi Forum Action Platform on Environmental and Biodiversity Conservation titled “Actions to Cherish Earth’s Life.” A total of 13 participants, including the speakers, attended the event in person, while 15 participants joined online. Below is a summary of the event.

Takuo Dome (Special Advisor to the President of Osaka University, Vice Chair of the Inochi Forum Executive Committee) :the opening remarks: An Introduction to the Inochi Forum

✓ Overview of the Inochi Forum and Declaration: Presentation of a cooperative society model between the “Capable” and the “Vulnerable.”
✓ Status of AP (Action Platforms): Held every Thursday. Gathering voices to contribute to the Inochi Declaration.

Yoshio Iwamura: “Apology and Responsibility to Animals.”

✓ Since the Great Hanshin Earthquake, he has worked as an unpaid pastor and a volunteer for the Tohoku earthquake for 14 years, providing care to those disconnected from welfare.
✓ He aims to transform the anthropocentric “right to live” into the rights of animals in the 21st century, addressing the societal structures that ignore pollution, seriously ill patients, and genocides in Ukraine, Israel, Africa, etc.
✓ Over 30 years of fieldwork, he has witnessed discrimination, oppression, and poverty, and society’s ignorance, indifference, and disconnection from these issues.
✓ Dolphins: Revered as sea gods (Watatsumi no Kami) and commercial objects in Japan, recognized globally as Non-Human Persons with sophisticated language abilities.
→ Modern philosophy’s immature understanding of the difference between humans (“thinking beings”) and animals (dolphins).
→ Advances in research approaching the essence of dolphins as social animals.
✓ The global trend towards banning the capture and keeping of cetaceans (non-human persons) contrasts with Japan’s ongoing dolphin shows, highlighting a regression.
✓ “Personhood = Consciousness” (Locke): The rights of infants, dementia patients, and people with mental disabilities are at risk (e.g., eugenics, the Tsukui Yamayuri En incident where intellectually disabled people were killed), which is rooted in the same issues as animal abuse.
→ “Life in Nature” (Spinoza): A global trend toward recognizing animals’ consciousness, emotions, and cognitive abilities, and the legal recognition of dolphins and great apes as non-human hominids.

Yuichiro Ishizaki (Secretary-General of the HUTAN Group, “Association for Thinking about Forests and Life with Orangutans”) : “The Destruction of Tropical Forests in Borneo and Its Connection to Our Consumer Lifestyles.”

✓ Addressing the question of how environmental issues relate to individuals: “Nature is you, and you are nature. Destroying nature is destroying yourself.”
✓ The HUTAN Group’s focus on tropical forest protection: The speaker’s foundational experiences in the forests of Borneo, which spans Indonesia, Malaysia, and Brunei, where they listened to the voices of insects and the forest.
✓ Tropical forests, which cover about 6% of the Earth’s surface, host more than 80% of all species, with biodiversity’s key point being the interdependence of these species.
✓ Ecosystems that have developed over tens of thousands to billions of years are being exhausted by humans within a few hundred years, depleting essential air, water, and soil, and severing connections with other living beings (environmental issues).
✓ Palm oil plantations: Landscapes devoid of the voices of life, stretching endlessly unchanged.
→ Consumers must recognize their role as destroyers of tropical forests, not just as those securing labor and foreign currency.
✓ Modern producers and consumers benefit from low-cost products and plantations, but the true cost is borne by developing countries, future generations, and other species—is this fair or sustainable?
✓ Issues in tropical forests include mineral conflicts, child soldiers, land grabs, and wildlife extinction, which reflect discrimination against the Global South, future generations, and other species.
✓ Factory farming and tropical forests: Livestock accounts for 60% of all mammals, with deforestation for pasture and consumption of 30-40% of the world’s grain leading to hunger and greenhouse gas emissions.
✓ Planetary boundaries: Issues related to tropical forests indicate the limits of the Earth’s environment.
✓ As consumers, we can help halt the destruction of tropical forests by purchasing products certified by the RSPO (Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil) for their environmental and human rights standards.
→ However, there are criticisms that (1) ecosystems do not exist within plantations, and (2) plantations are a product of colonialism, suggesting that the very existence of palm oil contradicts sustainability.
→ Changing lifestyles: Embracing organic farming and local production for local consumption, building a society based on creating and sharing, participating in civic activities and NGOs, and engaging in on-site activities.
→ Building a peaceful world requires eliminating environmental, regional, and generational discrimination (inequalities).