YM COLUMN ARCHIVE

June 18, 2008

Children’s Space Summit in Tomakomai

I went to The Ministry of Foreign Affairs this afternoon in accompanying children to see their delivering the Recommendation adopted at “Children’s Space Summit” held in Tomakomai, Hokkaido in May this year to the vice minister of the Ministry.

Children’s Space Summit was held on May 24-25, 2008 with the main theme of “Aspiring for Beautiful Planet Earth” represented by the children from various places in Japan and the Asian Pacific region. The objective of the meeting was to discuss, with the perspectives of children bearing the next generation future, such grave subjects as an importance of lives living on “beautiful non-renewable Earth”, an immediate problem of environment and the future problem of Earth, whose messages were to be compiled in the form of recommendation intended for Hokkaido-Toyako G8 Summit to broadly appeal in and out of this country to the whole world to be sent out originated from Hokkaido, Japan.

During the event, children from each country gave their reports on various subjects concerning the environmental problem of earth and they had earnest discussions on “What we, children, should do” in five sectional meetings among children of Japan and five other foreign countries. They also had enjoyable events of wide variety such as exchange meeting among themselves, lectures given by experts specialized in space, environmental education and application of earth observing data respectively; and also they enjoyed opinion exchanges through amateur radio and Internet connection and watched the movies “Earth” concerning natural environment and “Galaxy Express 999” (animation); there were also programmed special events of announcing new venture business attempt by taking advantage of space environment, lecture class of space experiment and special disclosure of “Mir” (space station of USSR), etc.

What I felt from the Summit is that the reports by children of foreign countries are so much filled with the sense of life as compared to those of Japan and Korea. For instance, the girl named “Angela” from Tuvalu showed by slide projector her beautiful island country of reef coral and their daily lives of ten thousand populations living there and closed the report by appealing “Our country will go under water in ten years”. Angela was such a cheerful girl and popular wherever she went. Japanese children seemed very much surprised to have seen a girl from such a despairing country behave so much cheerful and they might have learned the importance of finding a real truth directly connected to the environmental problem in their own daily lives close to themselves.

“Environmental Declaration” and “Recommendation” finalized on the last day were handed to the governor of Hokkaido on Monday this week and to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs this afternoon. They are to be delivered to each embassy of G8 through The Foreign Ministry for having them read by the heads of G8 states. A boy and a girl who joined the Summit visited Mr. Masakatsu Koike, vice minister of Foreign Ministry, to hand the Declaration and Recommendation. They looked happy when they heard the definite reply of vice minister, “I will surely see to it that these will be read by each head of a state.

The Environmental Declaration and Recommendation adopted at the “Children’s Space Summit” are as follows: (quoted from the original text)

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Our Hopes (Environmental Declaration of the Tomakomai Children’s Space Summit)

“Beautiful Planet Earth. We want to protect this living planet. The Earth is our only home in Space. It is so precious.”

On the basis of this belief, we gathered together in Tomakomai, Hokkaido as representatives from various places in Japan and the Asia Pacific region. We met and had discussions for 2 days on May 24-25, 2008. We, the 29 participants of this Summit, hereby confirm our resolution and submit the following recommendations to the Toyako G8 Summit as well as our friends around the world .

With the goal of achieving the Beautiful Planet Earth, we commit to continuing to keep Space and the environment in mind as we continue activities that we as children can perform.

May 25, 2008
Summit members


Recommendation from the Children’s Space Summit May 25, 2008

1. We discussed the status of each of our areas of the world. We got a grasp of and confirmed what exactly has been happening around us.
We truly felt the progression of Global Warming through the examples of sinking Tuvalu, drought in Australia, the bleaching of coral reefs, and the damage from typhoons in Okinawa that were reported by our colleagues.
The Earth we see from the space through fully utilized science and technology is beautiful. We confirmed that it is second to none – not renewable. We also realized that the environment is gradually being destroyed in large area in concrete terms.
Despite this, we often do not have a sense of it in our daily lives. So, it has become increasingly important to observe the environment of countries around the world from space and learn about the Earth’s environmental status.

2. Following this, we discussed what each of us should do to protect the Earth in concrete terms.
We would like the Earth to return to the status it was in during our grandparents’ time. We can easily take steps such as using “eco bags” and turning off electricity, as well as utilizing our ancestors’ wisdom to return to a life with traditions. In addition, we can live a life more in balance with nature by utilizing alternative energy such as sun light and developing science and technology that has consideration for not only humans but also for the entire Earth. The Earth, which humans have damaged, should be restored by humans.

3. However, there is a limit to what we children are able to do. We desire that the G8 take initiatives to call for action by all governments of the world.
We want the countries of the world to:
・ Deal with environmental issues through collaboration.
・ Organize a system that to make it easier for each country to deal with environmental issues.
・ Implement a Space Station for the protection of the Earth through global collaboration.
・ There is a word “Mottainai” (Shame to Waste) in Japan.
Please spread this word to the world as a common concept.
・ G8 countries should think about the situations of other countries since each country has different styles and levels of life.

We, children, will do what we can for our part, so we want adults to think about the Earth in order to preserve this beautiful non-renewable Earth.

I welcome your opinions on this column to the following E-mail address.
matogawa@planetary.or.jp

(Translated by The Planetary Society of Japan)