Sociological Study of Local Environmental Conservation : Community Organization, Citizen Participation and Expertise

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In this study, we mainly examined a local volunteer organization 'Akanoi basin conservation committee' in Moriyama city, Shiga pref. This committee is managed by local residents for water front conservation activities. Local environmental organizations are required two orientation activities : Self-governance and Collaboration. Self-governance activity is composed of keeping enough water volume, cleaning river and water channels and preservation of original water flora and fauna. Collaboration activity is composed of providing information to local residents and trying to make cooperation relationship with official community service, neighborhood association and local farmers associations.Self-governance activity is direct for conservation water environment. Collaboration activity is cooperating with other organizations to conserve environment indirectly. In the committee, some conflicts occured ; some members emphasized on Self-governance activity and others claimed Collaboration activity. This case study focused to analyze how committee succeeded in keeping these two activities in balance.Comparing the processes of restructuring environmental conservation system, we can find some patterns Community Based Organization, but the restructuring processes are different in different locality.Traditional neighborhood associations and voluntary groups combine to each other, and grow up to cooperate and penetrate each other. The difference of the characteristics of the regions can explain the difference of the patterns of the process of restructuring environmental conservation system. We need more examination about various way of residents' participation to conserve the local environments.