Creation of the Japanese Garden as a new tool for university cooperation in the heart of Asia
Victor KUZEVANOV11, Hajime MATSUSHIMA2, Takuhiro YAMADA3 & Svetlana SIZYKH1
1 Botanic Garden of Irkutsk State University, Irkutsk, Russia
2 Research Faculty of Agriculture, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan
3 Hanatoyo Landscape Co., Ltd., Kyoto, Japan
The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the potential of mutually beneficial
cooperation of Botanic Gardens in East Asia to strengthen their role and influence
in urban areas through the implementation of international botanical, environmental
and social projects. The article describes a history and challenges
of creating of an authentic Japanese Garden in the Russian Botanic Garden of
the Irkutsk State University, Irkutsk, Eastern Siberia, established by Japanese
and Russian professors, gardeners and university students in the heart of Asia.
The ethnobotanical Japanese Garden is a unique facility for interdisciplinary research
and academic cooperation in field of botany, horticulture, ethnography,
psychology, medicine, geography, linguistics, ecology and nature management,
landscape design and architecture, public education, biodiversity conservation,
nature protection, etc. It is shown that offsprings of the Japanese A-bomb trees
(Green Legacy Hiroshima trees) that survived the nuclear explosion in Hiroshima
can be a good supplement to the display of the Japanese garden and can be a
powerful peace message to the local population and the world. Perspectives of
other national type of traditional oriental gardens (Chinese, Korean, etc.) as crossdisciplinary
tools for various departments and specialties of higher professional
education at the universities in Siberia are discussed.
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© 2012 Organizing Committee
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