Global warming, environmental destruction due to human activities and decrease of biodiversity in recent years are now the issues that humans are facing in a mass global scale. In particular, these issues are most obvious in the form of exacerbation of desertification in arid land, which account for about 40% of the earth’s land surface. On the other hand, most of the countries located in arid land, especially those that spread from inland China to central Asia, the Middle East and northern Africa are developing countries, and they are in a dilemma of having to promote development in order to reduce poverty. One of the major keys to solve these conflicting issues is the effective utilization of biological, water and mineral resources in the arid land, but in promoting the research and development or social implementation, it is necessary to take an approach from multifaceted viewpoints that are not constrained by conventional specialized areas. Accordingly, as a “science and technology diplomacy” that Japan should undertake as a developed nation, we need to promote academic researches that engage in the effective utilization of arid land resources for sustainable development in harmony with the environment.

Regarding the research on bio-resource utilization, explorations for bio-resources aiming at the effective utilization for medicine have been done mainly in the tropical rainforest areas by researchers from developed countries until now. On the other hand, functional analysis and research targeted at bio-resources in arid land has been extremely slow, due to the awareness that the absolute number of living organisms is low, and also because the land is occupied by developing countries and some parts are Islamic societies. In addition, since Japan is not an arid land and does not have a solid footing on arid land research, there has been little progress in the systematic academic researches targeted at the functionalities of arid land biological resources until now.

Plants that grow on arid land possess functions that protect them from the stress of harsh habitat, and it is thought that they contain unique functional components that play such roles. To take an example from recent studies, it has been reported that olives and medicinal plants that grow in Sahara desert oases contain antioxidant materials (such as polyphenol) that are several times higher than those found in species growing in the Mediterranean region, and that these materials possess antitumor activity, antiallergic activity, neuronal cell death repressor activity, skin function activity, etc. Diverse industries will be created by promoting research aimed at the effective utilization of biological resources that lead to people’s health maintenance and treatment/alleviation of diseases as a joint enterprise with countries located in arid land, and this can be positioned as a new type of international contribution by Japan through economic development.

In “Toward the Reinforcement of Science and Technology Diplomacy” that was approved by the Council for Science and Technology Policy held in May of 2008, there is a list of 43 measures that Japan should address in order to promote the “Science and Technology Diplomacy,” which coordinates science and technology with diplomacy for their mutual evolution. Within the report, there is a section on “Science and Technology Research Partnership for Sustainable Development,” which explains the implementation of science and technology cooperation to enhance such cooperation with developing countries toward solving global issues, as well as the provision/verification of the achievements.

In “Science and Technology Research Partnership for Sustainable Development,” Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) and Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) collaborate to promote international joint research that target global issues with developing countries, and it aims at acquiring new knowledge jointly with research institutions of the developing countries in order to solve global issues and leads to increasing the level of science and technology. The partnership targets global issues (issues that are difficult to solve by just one country or one region, and it needs to be addressed jointly by the international society) based on the needs of developing countries, and it aims to promote international joint research that includes a scheme for future social implementation (applying the specific achievements of research for the benefit of society) by collaborating with Official Development Assistance (ODA) in order to acquire new knowledge that will lead to solving global issues and to advance the level of science and technology. Also, it seeks to advance the self-reliant research and development capabilities of the developing countries, as well as building sustainable action structures that contribute to solving issues through the joint international research.

Against such a background, a project called “Valorization of Bio-resources in Semi Arid and Arid Land for Regional Development” (Science and Technology Research Partnership for Sustainable Development) which I serve as the research supervisor was started last year. This project targets the arid land in Tunisia in northern Africa, and we will deploy the investigation of useful bio-resources based on food culture and traditional medicinal information, investigation of vegetation distribution, investigation of temperature/soil saline characteristics that are factors of environmental deterioration in arid land, investigation of habitat environment, perform exhaustive component analysis and functionality analysis of bio-resources that were selected based on these investigations, and create a database that encompasses the species/habitat environment information and functionality/element/chemical compound information of arid land bio-resources, as well as a barcode management library of seeds and functional elements. Furthermore, the project will develop the technologies for cultivation/breeding methods that aim at adapting to the environment, and will seek a high-degree utilization of arid land bio-resources by introducing food utilization and processing technologies.

The characteristics of the northern African region is that unlike the continental type of arid land, the distance between the Mediterranean Sea and the Sahara Desert is short, resulting in a large aridity gradient that produces a unique biodiversity. It is the only holarctic floral region in the Gondwana land (South America/Africa/Australia/India/Antarctica), and unique flora exist from the plant geography point of view as well. Also, the inter-Mediterranean region is a treasury of medicinal plants that possess a variety of functionalities, and there are interesting “food and medicine cultures” in Mediterranean countries since ancient times that utilized these plants as traditional herbs and spices.

Northern Africa, which is a crossroad of Arab-Islamic, African and inter-Mediterranean cultures is not only a treasury of biological and genetic resources that hold unknown potentials and a region where environmental issues on a global scale can be pursued in a pioneering way, but also an important region that holds a key to the exchange of Eastern and Western ideas. However, it is a region where Japan has been behind in overall understanding and research compared to other regions. In view of such research circumstances, we are turning our attention to northern Africa by considering it as a strategic educational and research base that overlooks the inter-Mediterranean region and across Africa, and as a research subject that can propose/transmit the vision of building a sustainable society to Japan and the world.

As the momentum for African development gathers strength at the “Tokyo International Conference on African Development IV” held in May of 2008 and at the “Hokkaido Toyako Summit” held in July, concrete implementation of science and technology cooperation that utilize the research achievements toward intellectual international contribution is being expected, and I believe that the implementation of this project is well-timed.

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