The Student Panel “Environmental Measures and East Asia: How We Can Make the Most of East Asian Traditions in Addressing Environmental Issues” was held in the afternoon on November 12th, 2007. Students of the University of Tokyo first illustrated the history of public pollution and then explained the effort of the people to solve the issue, including the everyday practice on Komaba campus, such as sorting out garbage. They also referred to Mottainai-spirit and how it worked in Japanese society including business enterprises such as Toyota. Students of the Peking University performed a lovely skit on campus life: how a selfish student changed into environmentally conscious citizen through his experience of learning the process of material recycling. Students of Vietnam National University emphasized the negative effect of industrialization, especially the deforestation and
the destruction of rural areas. According to them, the student volunteers have made efforts to introduce intermediate technology into rural areas to sustain their livelihood. Students from Seoul National University illustrated various student movements in terms of environmental protection both on campus and off campus. On campus, they have promoted the eco-campus campaign. Off campus, they have joined various NGO movements and appealed to Seoul local government for environmentally-friendly policies. Among the students of the four countries, questions and comments were exchanged in a more direct and straightforward manner compared to the panel discussion of the session two. For example, Japanese students seemed to be too modest about politics by Korean students. Vietnam students, by contrast, seemed to be too physiocratic by Japanese students. Korean students also accused the “yellow dust” from China. Nonetheless, their friendship developed through the heated discussion and they seem to have realized that the mutual trust have been established among them. It is quite likely that they would take the initiative to continue and develop the student panel in the future conference.
