Advancing Environmental Education Research from Asia: Why Asia?

I. Meaning of conducting international collaborative research The original purpose of publishing this special electronic issue “Environmental Education in Asia” of the “Japanese Journal of Environmental Education” (JJEE-EEA) was to establish a common platform for joint research on the development of environmental education (EE) in Asia and to foster international collaboration. The previous special issue of JJEE-EEA, published in 2016, included review papers in three themes: EE in Formal Education, EE in Non-formal Education, and Research Trends in EE. Researchers from Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea each provided examples from their respective countries. That special issue was composed and published, in part, due to the collaborative relations EE associations in these countries have. As such, the main goal, and the achievement, of JJEE-EEA 2016 was to share EE efforts across countries. Unlike the defined limited scope of JJEE-EEA 2016, for this consecutive issue, we encouraged researchers to propose and conduct international collaborative research under the general theme of EE in Asia, and we sought to cover diverse issues and topics of EE. The papers in this special issue detail international collaborative research including that focused on a specific species (oriental white stork), a specific area (a national park), a specific issue (nuclear energy), and a legal issue. We were pleasantly surprised to have such a variety of EE topics proposed to accept for this issue. While the previous issue (JJEE-EEA2016) succeeded in sharing general EE contexts from different Asian countries, this issue (JJEE-EEA 2019) succeeds in exploring and demonstrating issue-specific international collaborative research in the EE context in Asia. Each of the ten papers in this special issue show findings that could only have been discovered through international collaborative research, indicating the importance of adopting international perspectives instead of focusing on specific situations only in a single country or region. Collaborative research is challenging due to different cultures and languages. A researcher needs to get out of his or her comfort zone to engage in such a difficult task. While behind each paper authors faced challenges in designing and implementing international collaborative research, it is worth engaging in. As the world becomes more globalized and environmental problems become more critical in determining our continued existence on the planet Earth, initiatives such as Sustainable Development Goals become urgent. These goals cannot be solved without international collaboration, and to make collaborate efforts effective and meaningful, differences and similarities between countries should be examined. The papers in this issue are focused on this task. Uncovering these differences and similarities will ultimately inform developing solutions that cross national boundaries for issues raised in the case studies.