Environmental Accounting for Sustainable Management of Agriculture and Forestry

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Environmental accounting system is a valuable management tool for considering the interdependence between economy and ecological system. Macro level environmental accounting, like SEEA (System for integrated Environmental and Economic Accounting), focuses on interrelationship between economic activities and ecological system at national level. Similarly, Meso level environmental accounting system focuses on regional level interrelationship. And Micro environmental accounting focuses on business level.In this study, we applied Meso and micro level environmental accounting system for regional economy and agriculture. Our study area is Hokkaido prefecture in Japan. Meso level environmental accounting system is applied hybrid framework like the NAMEA (National Accounting Matrix including Environmental Accounts). Therefore we not only measured environmental loads but also environmental benefits accruing from agriculture in monetary and physical term. And we calculated environmental sustainability indicators by using a decoupling index and ecological footprints. Economic activities of Hokkaido pref. are not sustainable, because the consumption of energy resources is increasing as a result from this study. However, things are gradually changing for the better, because ecological footprints are decreasing.On the other hands, micro level environmental accounting system is difficult for farmers. They cannot make time to report their accounting information. So it is necessary that someone, like an agricultural cooperative association, assists them.And also, we evaluated environmental load of bio fuel by using life cycle assessment (LCA). If bio fuel takes the place of fossil fuel when whole energy consumption does not increase, greenhouse gas deceases.Finally, we recognize the need to improve the accounting framework for showing the limitation of macroeconomic scale, for reason that the macro economy is an open subsystem of the larger ecosphere.