Tottori Prefecture – Kauf Town
Kauf Town is the smallest town in Tottori Prefecture with the smallest population and the lowest GDP. The various problems facing rural areas, such as a declining population, a decrease in the number of people taking up farming, an increase in abandoned farmland and the deterioration of ‘SATOYAMA’, are becoming more apparent, but as a small municipality it has the advantage of being able to move with a sense of speed.
In November 2022, Lisa Kirimura,M.D. President of PHI, signed a cooperation agreement to promote planetary health, and in February 2024, JAHI-PHI, PHI’s predecessor, signed a cooperation agreement with the town. This cooperation have been promoting demonstration experiments and social implementation with the aim of creating a planetary health model.
This is the first practical example of a community-wide initiative in Japan and is also a progressive example internationally.
Protecting and regenerating the mountains and Satoyama has multiple benefits in terms of human well-being, the environment, disaster prevention, food security, education, tourism and culture.
We are working to create a model for Local Development 2.0 by building a Planetary Moral Economy based on the Nature Positive Economy, which values natural capital and well-being and planetary morality, which have not been valued in terms of GDP.
- Regenerative agriculture – building an augmented ecosystem through synecoculture.
- Regenerative civil engineering – the Okudaisen National Park area, water source restoration and disaster prevention.
- Green energy from water – micro-hydropower and green hydrogen production.
- Planetary health tourism
Tottori-Tokyo
In 2024, a demonstration project will be launched in collaboration with Marunouchi Rice Mill, a new business of Mitsubishi Estate, through the distribution of special rice using the hometown tax donation program of Kauf Town.
From 2025, a demonstration experiment will be conducted to lay the foundation for a global moral economy, which will create a flow of people from the city to Kauf Town and trigger an increase in the number of people involved and the number of people taking up farming.
