The Multilocality of Satoyama Landscape, Cultural Heritage and Environmental Sustainability in Japan

Using the versatile concept of multilocality, the paper analyses the close interrelation between Japanese landscape, cultural heritage and social construction of spatial meaning in the context of satoyama (mountain village). Originally intended as a peripheral space of subsistence within the rural economy, satoyama is considered today one of the main expressions of the Japanese local culture guided by identity mechanisms and based on complex discursive constructions of native place-based and environmental rhetoric. At the same time, the satoyama landscape has also become a transnational symbol promoted by the Japanese government which is used in national and international research programmes for environmental sustainability. The sense of multilocality of the satoyama landscape is here interpreted in its double identity value that can be put to a wide variety of political and cultural constructions of place.

The (un)sustainable game: An exploration of rhetorical strategies and risk communication in sustainable seafood campaigns

In the 1990s, following the Newfoundland Grand Banks cod fishery collapse along Canada’s East Coast, the first seafood sustainability certification organization was formed to address this widespread crisis. Two notable campaigns were formed shortly thereafter, both programs the projects of marine aquariums along the West Coast, and have gained significant attention: Vancouver Aquarium’s Oceanwise provides seafood recommendations to restaurants on the most sustainable choices and Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch, creates and disseminates consumer guides. This MRP examines the communication strategies of Seafood Watch and Ocean Wise used to encourage the consumption of sustainable seafood and promote ocean conservation. More specifically, this MRP analyzes the organizations’ use of environmental rhetoric, particularly in terms of framing and topoi, and how they communicate risk and urgency. How sustainable seafood campaigns establish credibility and rationale in the public sphere to communicate urgent, technical information surrounding fishery mismanagement is examined. This research will help inform future guidelines for social marketing campaigns to improve strategy and encourage consumer change. Recommendations for future research include the creation of evaluative programs to measure campaign effectiveness as well as an analysis of the niche markets established through the rising sustainable seafood market.

The (un)sustainable game: An exploration of rhetorical strategies and risk communication in sustainable seafood campaigns

In the 1990s, following the Newfoundland Grand Banks cod fishery collapse along Canada’s East Coast, the first seafood sustainability certification organization was formed to address this widespread crisis. Two notable campaigns were formed shortly thereafter, both programs the projects of marine aquariums along the West Coast, and have gained significant attention: Vancouver Aquarium’s Oceanwise provides seafood recommendations to restaurants on the most sustainable choices and Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch, creates and disseminates consumer guides. This MRP examines the communication strategies of Seafood Watch and Ocean Wise used to encourage the consumption of sustainable seafood and promote ocean conservation. More specifically, this MRP analyzes the organizations’ use of environmental rhetoric, particularly in terms of framing and topoi, and how they communicate risk and urgency. How sustainable seafood campaigns establish credibility and rationale in the public sphere to communicate urgent, technical information surrounding fishery mismanagement is examined. This research will help inform future guidelines for social marketing campaigns to improve strategy and encourage consumer change. Recommendations for future research include the creation of evaluative programs to measure campaign effectiveness as well as an analysis of the niche markets established through the rising sustainable seafood market.

Sustainable Seafood: An analysis of environmental rhetoric in public education campaigns

his MRP looks at the communication used in environmental advocacy public education campaigns, specifically focusing on those promoting sustainable seafood consumption. Organizations such as Ocean Wise and Seafood Watch aim to educate the public about the importance of choosing ocean-friendly fish, using a variety of communication tools and techniques to achieve their goals. This MRP focuses specifically on communication materials available in the public domain. Looking at the language used by these organizations on their websites, in documents found online and through their use of social media such as Facebook and Twitter, I analyzed a variety of their communications to determine whether they employ particular environmental rhetorical strategies in their public education campaigns. I focused my analysis by using Herndl and Brown’s (1996) rhetorical model for environmental discourse, which is designed to “identify the dominant tendencies or orientation of a piece of environmental discourse” and “help clarify the connections between a text, a writer, and the setting from which a piece of writing comes in an effort to elicit the underlying motives around a text or topic” (p. 10). This model looks at the relationship between three elements of environmental rhetoric (regulatory discourse, poetic discourse and scientific discourse) potentially found in pieces of environmental discourse. My MRP examines how Ocean Wise and Seafood Watch employ deliberative environmental rhetoric throughout their public education campaigns.

Sustainable Seafood: An analysis of environmental rhetoric in public education campaigns

his MRP looks at the communication used in environmental advocacy public education campaigns, specifically focusing on those promoting sustainable seafood consumption. Organizations such as Ocean Wise and Seafood Watch aim to educate the public about the importance of choosing ocean-friendly fish, using a variety of communication tools and techniques to achieve their goals. This MRP focuses specifically on communication materials available in the public domain. Looking at the language used by these organizations on their websites, in documents found online and through their use of social media such as Facebook and Twitter, I analyzed a variety of their communications to determine whether they employ particular environmental rhetorical strategies in their public education campaigns. I focused my analysis by using Herndl and Brown’s (1996) rhetorical model for environmental discourse, which is designed to “identify the dominant tendencies or orientation of a piece of environmental discourse” and “help clarify the connections between a text, a writer, and the setting from which a piece of writing comes in an effort to elicit the underlying motives around a text or topic” (p. 10). This model looks at the relationship between three elements of environmental rhetoric (regulatory discourse, poetic discourse and scientific discourse) potentially found in pieces of environmental discourse. My MRP examines how Ocean Wise and Seafood Watch employ deliberative environmental rhetoric throughout their public education campaigns.

Selling Forestry Revolution: The Rhetoric of Afforestation in Socialist China, 1949–61

This article attempts to cast doubt on prior scholarship regarding Maoist environmental rhetoric regarding forestry, which has tended to characterize it as destructive, militaristic, and irrationally extractive. Against this simplistic portrayal of Maoist rhetoric concerning Chinese forestry and Mao Zedong’s attitudes toward nature, this article demonstrates that the rhetoric of forestry and environment in general during Mao’s period is scientific, rational, and even constructive regarding tree planting. To demonstrate the rational and premeditated aspect of socialist forestry and environmental history, the article first explores the speeches and writings of Japan and Germany educated Liang Xi, probably the most important forester in early socialist China, who advocated tree planting as a way of tackling the problem of the scarcity of trees. During the early 1950s, his firm belief that tree planting could solve the problems of the Yellow River clashed with hydrologists who also aspired to solve China’s environmental challenges. Using newspaper reports from the People’s Daily, the article then examines the rhetoric of the “Greening the Motherland” campaign launched by Mao in 1956. During this campaign, Mao pushed the Yellow River’s tree-planting initiative to a national scale, thanks largely to the foresters’ concerted efforts of persuasion. This nationwide campaign, in concert with the new regime's state-building efforts, required foresters to instill knowledge of tree planting in a broad range of people at the grassroots level as well as to strategically integrate it within the socialist revolutionary and global environmental discourse.