The Award Ceremony of the Japan Awards for Biodiversity 2015, to honor distinguished projects carried out by organizations or individuals in Japan that have made outstanding contributions to the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity, was held at U Thant International Conference Hall of the United Nations University (Tokyo, Japan) on October 20, 2015.

After the opening address by Mr. Takuya Okada, Chairman of the AEON Environmental Foundation and a complimentary speech by Mr. Yoshimi Okunushi, Director-General, Nature Conservation Bureau of Japan’s Ministry of the Environment, the Grand Prix of the Japan Awards, selected from the five Excellence Award winning projects, was announced at the award ceremony. The Yezo Deer Association project “The Advanced Promotional Project on the Appropriate Resource Use of Hokkaido Sika Deer Meat” won the Grand Prix of the Japan Awards 2015.

The Grand Prix prize winner was awarded a certificate, a commemorative gift and a monetary prize of two million yen by Mr. Okada. Also, each Excellence Award prize winner was awarded a certificate, a commemorative gift and a monetary prize of one million yen.

In reviewing the Japan Awards 2015, Mr. Manabu Akaike, Director of the Universal Design Intelligence Inc. and a member of the Judging Committee said, “The five winning projects selected from 126 applied projects have commonalities such as “cooperation with multi-stakeholders” and ‘biodiversity +α.’ Each project has developed Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), and has realized Creating Shared Value (CSV) contributing to public welfare through more directly solving the problems. In addition, each project has brought profits to regions, created jobs, influenced administration, and transmitted new value to society. Further development of these five projects all over Japan and around the world is awaited with anticipation.”

The prize winners gave presentations and introduced their activities.
An outline of the prize winning projects is shown as follows.
Topics: Winning Projects of the Japan Awards for Biodiversity 2015 Announced

In the latter part of the award ceremony, a commemorative lecture entitled “Insect Technology: Manufacturing Technology Learning from Biodiversity” was given by Prof. Takayuki Nagashima of Tokyo University of Agriculture. In the lecture, Prof. Nagashima introduced various technologies such as the production of light and durable material learnt from beehives, antifouling tiles learnt from snails, and so on. These technologies are contributing to the sustainable use of biodiversity by elucidating the functions and structures of living things which have been elaborated during the evolutionary process.