Nature-Culture Inter relationships in the Mekong Watershed

这是一项基于中国、缅甸、老挝、泰国和越南的湄公河流域实地调查的跨学科研究。调查概要如下：高井副教授研究了泰国北方和东北部的食用牛和水牛的意向的变化，并调查了其社会意义。野中副教授对作为自然资源的昆虫的食用方式进行了研究。Akimich教授谈到家禽驯化过程的问题，他说，这并不一定简单，可以在自然与人类世界的复杂交流中找到答案。武田教授对“民间服饰”的研究，对它在时间上的稳定性表示怀疑。阮朝副教授详细考察了主要在云南西双版纳盆地引进的橡胶种植园对环境的影响，通过这项研究，我们成功地从遗传学、动植物利用、族群之间的栖息地隔离和合作以及文化和社会方面，如服饰和社会结构我们认为，这项研究为我们提供了一条线索，说明合作使用和管理国际河流的可能性，并解决环境问题，关于云南的合作研究，研究报告的手稿已经完成，将在日本和中国出版。

This is an interdisciplinary research based on fieldworks at the watershed of the Mekong in China, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam.The outline of this survey is as follows.Associate Professor Takai studied the changes on the intention for eating cattle and water buffalos in northern and northeastern Thailand, and investigated its social sense. Associate Professor Nonaka conducted his research on the manners of using an insect, which is a part of natural resources, for food. Professor Akimich handled the issue of the process in domestication of fowls.He stated that it was not necessarily simple, and could be found in the complicated exchanges between nature and the world of human beings. Professor Takeda studied "folk costume", and is doubtful of its stability in terms of time. Associate Professor Fukao elaborately examined how the rubber plantations, which had been introduced mainly into the basin of Xishuang Banna in Yunnan, had influenced the environment.We, through this research, succeeded in making synthetic survey on the relationship between nature and the human culture in the valley of the Mekong from the viewpoints of genetics, the use of plants and animals, the habitat segregation and cooperation between ethnic groups and cultural and social aspects such as costumes and social structures We believe that this research has given us a clue to the possibility of cooperative use and administration of the international river, and to the solution of environmental problems, which cannot be separated by borderlines.As for the joint research in Yunnan, the manuscripts of the research report have already been completed, and will be published both in Japan and in China.