How can we make global environmental issues our own? By using high-resolution environmental reconstruction using coral annual bands, this project will discover local indigenous knowledge born from the relationship between humans and nature, and local issues buried in global-scale changes. Using art as a medium, we will discuss how local communities can work toward spontaneous solutions to global environmental problems, and create future collective knowledge to obtain an image of local communities that can easily be empathized with.

Why do this research?

Climate change has profoundly affected terrestrial and marine ecosystems, human migration, settlements, lifestyles, and civilizations. Recent economic development, population growth, and globalization risk societal vulnerability, perhaps leading to simpler lifestyles. This project aims to re-evaluate indigenous knowledge from nature and human memories and create a future collective knowledge that is resilient and sympathetic to future global environmental changes.

Progress of your research: what you want to do in the future

This research compares high-resolution coral records with human beings’ memories to make a shared vision about the resilient and sympathetic past and future lifestyles using a method that combines the sciences and art. We are developing methods incorporating art to promote empathy and collective future thinking among researchers from different fields, local stakeholders, and generations. By providing a place to examine and select scenarios that lead to the future, we propose a way for local communities to easily generate empathy, facilitate future generations’ choices easily and develop this into a collaborative effort.