Program

PICES, the North Pacific Marine Science Organization, was established in 1992. The purpose is to promote the marine science in the North Pacific Ocean. Since the establishment, sustainable use of marine living resources and conservation of marine ecosystems have been common interests to the contracting parties; Canada, China, Japan, Korea, Russia, and USA.
Over the past quarter century, PICES has provided many scientific accomplishments through inter-disciplinary collaboration by scientists. Description and comparison of various marine ecosystems, evaluation of population fluctuation of commercial fish stocks under climate change, and development of a numerical model forecasting ecological response to climate change are the typical examples. These accomplishments have stimulated marine science in the contracting parties and contributed their marine policies.
Capacity building　for postgraduate students and early carrier scientists is also an important role of PICES. Several approaches, such as summer schools, training for professionals, and internships in the secretariat, have been conducted under the cooperation with the contracting parties and other scientific organizations.
Japanese government and scientists have contributed the scientific accomplishments and international cooperation. Two PICES projects on enhance the capability for harmful algal blooms and fisheries management in developing Pacific Rim countries were funded by Japanese government. At the time of the Great East Japan Earthquake disaster, Japan support the collaborative studies on the distribution and diffusion of radioactive chemicals and tsunami debris and their ecological impacts by providing information and funds. Since the global environmental changes become the menace for human life, it is necessary to establish a mutual support relationship between marine ecosystems and human well-beings. Japanese traditional approaches, such as “Sato-umi”, are good examples of human activities harmonized with marine ecosystems, which should be more emphasized through the discussions in PICES.

Professional and general marine education are two major marine education systems in Taiwan. The main purpose of professional education was to cultivate professional abilities for marine career development. The main purpose of general education was to promote Taiwan citizen’s marine awareness. This article was focuses on the general education to discuss about the development of marine education in primary and secondary schools.
Ministry of the Education promulgates the first version of the White Paper of Marine Education Policy in Taiwan in 2007. The purposes of the policy were to promote the marine education in Taiwan. The white paper includes four important policies: 1) constructing Marine Education Executing Program during 2007 to 2011; 2) assisting 22 local governments to set up Marine Education Resource Centers; 3) formulating the outlines of the national curriculum of marine education and helping teachers to integrate the marine education into their teaching; 4) funding local governments to promote teachers’ abilities for teaching marine education.
Taiwan Marine Education Center (TMEC) performed a project that was founded by Ministry of Education in 2013. The purposes of this project were to review and develop marine education policies, integrate marine resources, and enhance citizen’s ocean literacy. Teachers or schools, local marine education resources centers, and TMEC, and Ministry of Education were gradually formed a complete development system of marine education. The framework was shown as below.
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The higher education system has gone through a dramatic change during the past two decades in Taiwan. The programs for associate diploma have been terminated in technological universities and colleges due to a government policy that promoted all colleges to degree granting institutions during 2000s.

Criteria for rank promotion of faculty members in poly-tech colleges, however, became similar to those in comprehensive universities. Therefore, junior faculty members in both technological and comprehensive universities concentrate their efforts in producing research papers rather than teaching. As the results, the fine lines between technological and comprehensive higher education systems became indistinguishable. Furthermore, with majority of students in vocational high schools continuous to pursue their bachelor’s degree, few entry level work forces with practical skills entered the job market. Although this happens to all fields, it is especially a serious problem for agriculture related disciplines including aquaculture. By contrast, the number of doctorates granted during this period surpassed the available tenure positions in both academic and industrial sectors. These problems have been recognized by both government officials and educators in recent years. To fix the problems, remedial policies have been established. Strategies and actions aim toward solving these problems have been carried out and will be further discussed in the session.

We live on an aquatic planet, and rely strongly on our livelihood to the sea. A sustainable use of aquatic resources, notably aquatic living resources is essential for the future of mankind. As living resources, marine organisms reproduce. However, the understanding of the mass toward this simple fact, that sea food is marine living resources and that they reproduce naturally, is nil. In order to fill this gap in the understanding and knowledge of the mass toward marine living organisms, we have utilized deep sea demersal fishes discarded at the sea as material for outreach activity at middle schools. Here a series of outreach activity we have conductied since 2011 is presented.
Materials: Deep sea organisms were obtained by getting on board Hinodemaru, a commercial deep sea bottom trawler operating in Suruga Bay, Shizuoka Prefecture, central Honshu. Marine organisms were sorted on deck into specimens for research and material for cooking lessons, cleaned and refrigerated. After .disembarking, specimens were frozen until use.
Outreach activity: Each lesson was made up from four parts. First, self-introduction and a brief outline of research activity. Second, a lecture on marine biology related to research conducted by the presenter or on basic fish anatomy. Third, observation of deep sea demersal fish specimens and dissection. Fourth, students actually processed, cooked and ate deep sea demersal fishes.
Student reaction: Through these experiences, students’ interest towards fish and awareness toward the aquatic environment, proper management and full utilization of fisheries resources were stirred and solidified.
There is nothing better than a first-hand experience, provided on a silver platter.

[Objective and Method]
Rural communities are facing aging problem in Japan, which also causes the decline of primary industry including fishery. To overcome such challenges, it is urged to reconstruct the rural communities by promoting the immigration of population.
However, it is not understood well how locals and newcomers can successfully re-build their community together. This work, therefore aims to explore the factors for building social cohesion among locals and newcomers in modern rural communities. To meet this objective, we attempt to capture and visualize the notion of a community, focusing on how it is constructed and perceived by the local residents. Data was collected in Shiraho village, Okinawa, Japan, through the structured free-answer questionnaire designed with the concept of time axis.

[Results and Discussion]
Combination of qualitative and quantitative text content analysis revealed that the notion of community consists of four elements: ‘livelihood’, ‘culture’, ‘self-governance’, and ‘social cohesion’. From this result, we discuss the importance of practice which can contribute to the development of ‘livelihood’ and ‘culture’ of the community, for building the social cohesion between locals and newcomers. We also suggest the growing importance of ‘culture’ element which can function as a glue among residents while the ‘livelihood’ element is decreasing its importance by the diversification of occupational choice.

[Conclusion]
As a consequence for our case study, we propose a new view of modern rural community, where the both locals and immigrants are sharing the ideal notion of community but struggling toward it in their present lives. As a consequence for our methodology, we suggest that our free-answer questionnaire will be beneficial for policy makers and practitioners to understand the essence of certain community when they aims to collaborate with local residents.