The History of Ecological Environment: Ideas Derived from Chinese Research

During the last few years the phrase “seitai-kankyō”, the Japanese term for “ecological environment”, has appeared frequently in the scholarship of Japanese researchers of China. The two words that make up this phrase were coined in Japan as translations for concepts imported from Europe, and then exported to China. Having passed through the filter of the Japanese language, their nuances are not necessarily the same as the terms used in the United States and Europe. In addition, the phrase “seitai-kankyō” itself is the Japanese re-import of the Chinese phrase, “shengtai huanjing”, formed by joining the originally Japanese words “seitai” and “kankyō”. From the 1990s, problems of pollution, global warming, deforestation, desertification, and water scarcity surfaced in China. It became clear that unusual fluctuations in the level of the Yellow River were causing “manmade”, rather than “natural”, disasters. At this time, “ecology” was influenced by the field of biology, while “environment” was coloured by ideas from engineering. A term that would combined both ideas was needed leading to the appearance of “shengtai huanjing”. When Chinese research on the ecological environment was finally introduced to Japan and joint research began, one result was the adoption of this Chinese term by Japanese researchers.