The mission of rural planning is to diagnose ever-changing interactions between man and nature and to propose amendments for institutions (rules of resource uses). In the latter half of the last century, every nation pursued economical success without deep insight into their nature and culture. As a result standardized development undermined natural and cultural diversities and competition among regions arose. Environmental problems and economic disparity are the consequences of such a paradigm.

For our sustainable future, we better focus our attention on differences of characteristics of each region and pursue complementary relations rather than competitive relations for resource use among regions. We try to do so, through our research in environment history, environment monitoring and future-projections.