YAMAGUCHI Michael Tsuyoshi

Minister of the Environment, Government of Japan

Dr. Yamaguchi is the Minister of the Environment of Japan. He began his career at the Ministry of the Foreign Affairs in 1979, where he held positions such as Chief Secretary of the Security Policy Division in the Intelligence Coordination Bureau, First Secretary at the Embassy of Japan in the U.K., Pakistan, and China, and Director of the International Science Cooperation Division in the Foreign Policy Bureau. After being elected to the House of Representatives in 2000 and prior to his current post, he has served as State Minister of the Cabinet Office, Chairperson of the Special Committee on North Korean Abductions and Committee on Security in the House of Representatives, Deputy Chairperson of the Election Strategy Committee of the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan (LDP), and Chief Deputy Secretary-General of the LDP.

Dr. Yamaguchi holds a B.A. in Law from the University of Tokyo, and Master’s and Doctoral degrees from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies.

KOITABASHI Satoshi

Vice Governor, Kanagawa Prefectural Government

After completing study at Department of International Business Law, Graduate School of Yokohama National University, Mr. Koitabashi entered Kanagawa Prefectural Government in 1986. He served in various positions, such as Director of the School Affairs Division, Executive Director of the Policy Department, Executive Director of the Office of the Governor, Secretary to the Governor for Administrative Policy and Director General of the General Administration Bureau. He was assigned to the current position, Vice Governor, in April 2020.

TAKEUCHI Kazuhiko

President, IGES

TAKEUCHI Kazuhiko graduated from the Department of Geography, the University of Tokyo in 1974. He obtained M.Agr. and Ph.D. from the Graduate School of Agriculture, the University of Tokyo. He served as a Professor at the Asian Natural Environmental Science Center, and as Professor at the Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Science at the University of Tokyo from 1997 to 2012. He also served as a Vice-Rector and Senior Vice-Rector at the United Nations University from 2008 to 2016. From 2016, he has served as a Senior Visiting Professor at United Nations University Institute for the Advanced Study of Sustainability (UNU-IAS). He was Director and Professor/Project Professor of IR3S at the University of Tokyo from 2017 to 2019. He has served as President, Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES) since July 2017. He took up the position as Project Professor of the Institute for Future Initiatives (IFI) at the University of Tokyo in April 2019. He has served, inter alia, as Chair of the Central Environmental Council, Government of Japan, Editor-in-Chief of the journal Sustainability Science (Springer Nature) and Distinguished Chair, Wangari Maathai Institute for Peace and Environmental Studies, University of Nairobi.

He specialises in landscape ecology, landscape planning, and sustainability science.