MEGURO, Toshio

Research Associate, Ph.D.

Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa,
Tokyo University of Foreign Studies
3-11-1 Asahi-cho, Fuchu-shi,
Tokyo, 183-8534, Japan

Email: megurot[at]aa.tufs.ac.jp

Personal Homepage:

Research interests: Wildlife conservation in Africa, Change in pastoral societies

Seeing zebras and being chased by elephants

Many people associate Africa with wildlife. At the same time, many people consider that Africa is a poor continent and therefore it needs for international aids. Community-based conservation, the major topic in my academic research, is an approach of international aids whose goal is to conserve wildlife and provide development with local societies through tourism. I have conducted fieldwork in a Maasai society in southern Kenya, where community-based conservation projects were implemented. I am interested in local human-wildlife relations as well as the impact of environmental policy and international aids on local societies and those relations. The government and conservation NGOs ask local people to coexist with wildlife, but the request is rejected by the people. I am studying the reason why such a discrepancy occur between the local society and the ousiders.

At beginning, I was interested in environmental policies and international aids. However, as I have conducted fieldwork, I came to realize that the traditional culture and the current life of local people were misunderstood not only by tourists but also by conservation NGOs and the government. I plan to do research on the change in traditional culture, livelihood activities and local values so on.

Research Projects: