Australian Occupational Therapy Journal (2014) 61, 458–461
doi: 10.1111/1440-1630.12136
Viewpoint
Occupational therapy and environmental sustainability Mami Aoyama Department of Occupational Therapy, Nishikyushu University, Kanzaki, Japan
KEY WORDS climate change, meaningful/sustainable occupation, ecosystem services, occupational cycle. In 2012, the World Federation of Occupational Therapists (WFOT) published a position paper on ‘Environmental sustainability, sustainable practice within occupational therapy’. This publication marks an important milestone in bringing the issue of sustainability into occupational therapy practice. Sustainability can be defined as use of the environment and resources to meet ‘the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’ (World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987, p. 43). Occupational therapists’ expert knowledge on occupation gives them a significant insight into the big problems associated with environmental change. Despite this, there is still a need for more practice and research. Furthermore, for many occupational therapists questions of sustainability may still seem rather distant from their professional concerns and there is a need to explain to a broader audience the connection between occupational therapy and sustainability.
Occupation and adaptation in human history In order to explore the connection between occupational therapy and environmental sustainability, a useful place to begin is with the objectives of occupational therapy. The WFOT (2011) defines occupational therapy as a ‘client-centred health profession concerned with promoting health and wellbeing through occupation’. Occupations are the activities that people do from waking up to going to sleep. Chains of occupation make up the everyday life of each day and the accumulation of this
Mami Aoyama PhD, MSc, BA, OTR (Japan); Professor. Correspondence: Mami Aoyama, Department of Occupational Therapy, Nishikyushu University, Kanzaki 842-8585, Japan. Email: [email protected] Accepted for publication 26 May 2014. © 2014 Occupational Therapy Australia
everyday life makes human lives. Occupation has cultural and individual meanings in the society where each person lives and those meanings affect how occupations are chosen and performed. Occupational performance is associated with physical and mental functions and the experience of occupation makes identity. Processes of inheritance and interaction through human occupation transform society and culture and make history (Aoyama, 2012a). The historical accumulation of occupations reflects the way that humans adapt to environmental change through occupation. Although warnings about the current crisis of global sustainability are very alarming, there have already been several crisis points in human history. The first began 14 million years ago when climatic cooling led to a reduction in tropical forests and the growth of savanna ecosystems. Some primates moved from their relatively safe life in the trees to the more dangerous savanna, adapting to the new environment and evolving into humans in the process. After this, humans developed technologies to use fire, and to make tools, houses and clothes. A growing emphasis on hunting and meat-eating by hominids was associated with major cultural and anatomical changes. Between about 50,000 and 10,000 years ago, many large animals that were the main food source for humans became extinct and a food crisis developed. Facing this food crisis, humans spent more time processing acorns and other plants. Humans began to settle down, shifting their occupations from those of ‘travellers’ who moved following animals to ‘processors’ who stayed in one place and processed foods (Bettinger, 2001). This led to the development of farming. Able to produce a more secure source of food, humans developed state-based civilizations and an even more affluent and convenient material culture through modernity. However, as a result of this historical process, humankind is now experiencing an ecological crisis that will affect future wellbeing. The lifestyles and occupations of most humans have changed dramatically in the 100 years since the formation of occupational therapy. Over this period, there have also been immense increases in human impacts on the environment. Since 1917, for example, world population has almost quadrupled (Steffen et al., 2004). Since around 1960, the
VIEWPOINT
global economy expanded more than six times, food production has increased about 2.5 times, water use has doubled, and wood harvests for paper have tripled (Walker & Salt, 2006, p. 3). According to the World Wide Fund for Nature (2012), humans are now using the equivalent of 1.5 planets. It is now ‘beyond dispute’ that the burning of fossil fuels since the Industrial Revolution has led to anthropogenic climate warming (Rockstr€ om et al., 2009, p. 473). Pre-industrial atmospheric carbon dioxide levels were below 280 ppm (Rockstr€ om et al.), but have increased in recent years and according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (www.esrl. noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/weekly.html) reached 402 ppm in February 2014. Global warming resulting from this increase in CO2 levels is leading to water shortages, rising sea levels, the spread of disease and insect vectors, heat stroke, ecosystem changes, and a range of natural disasters (Costello et al., 2009).
Ecosystem services, occupation, and wellbeing In 2007, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reported it to be ‘very likely’ that global warming is caused by human activity (Pachauri & Reisinger, 2007). The emphasis on human activity in the IPCC shows that climate changes are linked to what occupational therapy calls ‘occupation’. In other words, human occupations are causing an unprecedented crisis of environmental sustainability. However, at the same time, this means that occupational therapy has the potential to help to change the human activities/occupations that are causing the harm. When I began to think about how occupational therapy might contribute to prevent the destruction of ecosystems and to maintain sustainability, an especially important stimulus was reading the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA) (2005). Ecosystem services are the benefits people obtain from ecosystems and comprise the life support system for humanity. Yet humans have come to act as if we were independent of that life support and ‘most people are unaware of their most basic ecological dependencies’ (Cornell, Costanza, S€ orlin & van der Leeuw, 2010, p. 426). The MEA classifies three types of ecosystem service: regulating services, which clean the air and water, provisioning services that provide food, fuel and medicines, and cultural services which provide leisure and sports and work to reduce mental stress. The MEA also argued that these ecosystem services are related to the elements of wellbeing: security, basic material for good life, health, good social relations and freedom of choice and action. Human health, wellbeing and quality of life rely closely on the availability and health of ecosystem services (MEA, 2005).
459 Existing models of the ecology of occupation within occupational therapy do not deal with these issues and I developed a model to help understand this relationship (Aoyama et al., 2012). In this model, occupation mediates ecosystem services with human health and wellbeing, and those occupations have a strong influence on the health of ecosystems. Although this model may stimulate occupational therapists to think more about the role of occupation in global environmental change, it does not begin to explore the complexities of the relationship. To explore this relationship further, I began to develop the concept of ‘occupational cycles’ in order to understand how our occupations actually transform ecosystem services into health and wellbeing. I realised that there was a need to begin with a relatively simple example that could show as many of the links between occupation and ecosystems as possible. Having worked on issues related to the Indigenous Ainu people of northern Japan, I used the traditional occupations of the Ainu to develop a heuristic model of occupational cycles that shows the basic connections between ecosystems and human life (Aoyama, 2012b). In this model, humans obtain food and fuel from forests, rivers, and the ocean. They bring home the resources they obtain and process them, using the meat, hides, bones and fat for food, clothing, tools and other essential items. These resources are used to maintain life. Waste disposed as part of this process is returned to the ecosystem. The chain of occupations stretching from obtaining resources to using products in everyday life is performed by the same individuals or community. People who are closely connected to the ecosystem are in a better position to understand ecosystem changes and such tight feedbacks loops may make it easier to change their occupations as required (cf. Walker & Salt, 2006). Although the above model is somewhat idealised, the contemporary occupational cycle in industrial societies is very different. The industrial cycle is marked by large resource inputs and by mass production, mass consumption and mass disposal of resources that cannot be returned to the ecosystem. Occupations are not performed by the same group but are divided into primary, secondary and tertiary industries. We buy things made by other people and use them in our everyday life. We have lost many of our direct connections with nature, especially those connections derived from making things that form part of an occupational cycle supporting everyday life. Losing these occupations has not only meant losing the joy of making things, but also losing the opportunity to learn about the crucial support of ecosystem services in maintaining everyday life, health and wellbeing. We no longer possess a view of gratitude towards nature and because of this loss of awareness of our dependence on ecosystem services, we are consuming resources beyond the capacity of the
© 2014 Occupational Therapy Australia
460
M. AOYAMA
ecosystem in order to meet our occupational needs and desires. As part of this process, we are disposing of huge amounts of trash, damaging ecosystem services, and causing climatic changes. Occupations satisfy our desires and make our lives affluent, but they can also damage the environment. If consumption increases at present rates, what will happen to the resources that support our lives and industries? The concept of ecosystem services shows that maintaining a sustainable environment is connected to the promotion of health and wellbeing, which is an aim of occupational therapy interventions. In order to build a sustainable future, we have to think about how to use and how to not use our limited energy and resources. This should be the same as when we make choices about how to use our limited money, what lifestyles we adopt, and the meanings of our occupations. Furthermore, we might need to participate more in occupations for conservation to make healthier ecosystems.
how those activities are issues of justice (Aoyama and Aki, 2013). Through progress towards sustainable community development, occupational therapy can help build a new future which combines sustainability with occupational justice. The 2012 WFOT position paper on sustainability ‘encourages occupational therapists working with clients wishing to live more sustainable lives to promote environmentally sustainable occupational performances and lifestyles’. For communities and individuals, the integration of occupations that are both meaningful and sustainable can lead to a new category of human activity that we might term ‘meaningful/sustainable occupations’. It might be argued that, by definition, all occupations are ‘meaningful’ (in either a positive or negative sense), but in the context of sustainability there is still a need to emphasise this quality, not least to counter the argument that occupations that are sustainable require sacrifice and therefore cannot also be meaningful in a positive sense.
Contributions of occupational therapy
Acknowledgements
The recent position statement on sustainability issued by the WFOT (2012) reflects important progress in engaging occupational therapy with this issue. The first step for occupational therapy to contribute to promoting environmental sustainability must be to recognise that this task is necessary to meet the very goals of occupational therapy in supporting health and wellbeing. Building this common consensus will require further discussion and then additions to the educational curriculum for world occupational therapy. Within this shared curriculum, concrete interventions will vary depending on the cultural context where occupational therapy is practiced as well as on the area of practice. Occupational therapists have the broad ability to enable individual capabilities and to empower social participation (Piskur, 2013). Social movements such as the Transition concept are beginning to transform many places into more sustainable communities (Hopkins, 2008) and occupational therapy could play a more proactive role in such endeavours. An occupational approach needs to use occupation and thus has to be based on real occupations performed in specific local contexts. Direct interventions aimed at making daily occupations more sustainable have been successfully attempted by Ikiugu and McCollister (2011), who have shown that occupational therapy can stimulate people to think about how their daily activities are connected to health, wellbeing and sustainability. Another type of intervention was a joint project developed between an occupational therapist and a professional artist to write an illustrated history of nature and society in a local town in Japan. Aimed at primary school children, this book attempts to get students to think more about how their daily activities are connected to the natural environment and also © 2014 Occupational Therapy Australia
This paper is a revised version of a lecture given in the Department of Occupational Therapy, Cardiff University in March 2012. I wish to thank Dikaios Sakellariou and the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation for their support for that visit to Cardiff. I am also grateful to the two anonymous reviewers for their detailed comments.
References Aoyama, M. (2012a). “Imi aru sagy o” to “sagy o no imi” [“Meaningful occupation” and “the meaning of occupation”]. Sagyo Ryoho Saga, 2, 3–9. (in Japanese). Aoyama, M. (2012b). Indigenous Ainu occupational identities and the natural environment in Hokkaido. In: N. Pollard & D. Sakellariou (Eds.), Politics of occupation-centred practice: Reflections on occupational engagement across cultures (pp. 106–127). Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. Aoyama, M. & Aki, S. (2013). Yokane Kanzaki: Rekishi kara manabo, shizen to shakai to hito no kurashi. [We like Kanzaki: Learning from history about nature, society and people’s lives]. Kanzaki: University of West Kyushu. Aoyama, M., Hudson, M. J. & Hoover, K. C. (2012). Occupation mediates ecosystem services with human wellbeing. Journal of Occupational Science, 19, 213–225. Bettinger, R. L. (2001). Holocene hunter-gatherers. In: G. M. Feinman & T. D. Price (Eds.), Archaeology at the millennium: A sourcebook (pp. 137–195). New York: Kluwer/Plenum. Cornell, S., Costanza, R., S€ orlin, S. & van der Leeuw, S. (2010). Developing a systematic “science of the past” to create our future. Global Environmental Change, 20, 426–427. Costello, A., Abbas, M., Allen, A., Ball, S., Bell, S., Bellamy, R. et al. (2009). Managing the health effects of climate change. Lancet, 373, 1693–1733. Hopkins, R. (2008). The transition handbook: From oil dependency to local resilience. Totnes: Green Books.
VIEWPOINT
Ikiugu, M. & McCollister, L. (2011). An occupation-based framework for changing human occupational behavior to address critical global issues. International Journal of Professional Practice, 2, 402–417. Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. (2005). Ecosystems and human well-being: Synthesis. Washington, DC: Island Press. Pachauri, R. K. & Reisinger, A. (Eds.). (2007). Climate change 2007: Synthesis report. Geneva: IPCC. Piskur, B. (2013). Social participation: Redesign of education, research, and practice in occupational therapy. Scandinavian Journal of Occupational Therapy, 20, 2–8. Chapin, Rockstr€ om, J., Steffen, W., Noone, K., Persson, A., F. S., III, Lambin, E. F. et al. (2009). A safe operating space for humanity. Nature, 461, 472–475. Steffen, W., Sanderson, A., Tyson, P. D., Jager, J., Matson, P. M., Moore, B., III et al. (2004). Global change and the Earth system: A planet under pressure. New York: Springer.
461 Walker, B. & Salt, D. (2006). Resilience thinking: Sustaining ecosystems and people in a changing world. Washington, DC: Island Press. World Commission on Environment and Development. (1987). Our common future. Oxford: Oxford University Press. World Federation of Occupational Therapists. (2011). Statement on occupational therapy. Retrieved April 25, 2014, from http://www.wfot.org/Portals/0/PDF/STATE MENT%20ON%20OCCUPATIONAL%20THERAPY%2030 0811.pdf World Federation of Occupational Therapists. (2012). Environmental sustainability, sustainable practice within occupational therapy. Retrieved April 25, 2014, from http://www.wfot.org/ResourceCentre.aspx WWF. (2012). Living planet report 2012: Summary. Retrieved April 25, 2014, from http://awsassets.panda. org/downloads/lpr_2012_summary_booklet_final.pdf
© 2014 Occupational Therapy Australia
Copyright of Australian Occupational Therapy Journal is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.
doi: 10.1111/1440-1630.12136
Viewpoint
Occupational therapy and environmental sustainability Mami Aoyama Department of Occupational Therapy, Nishikyushu University, Kanzaki, Japan
KEY WORDS climate change, meaningful/sustainable occupation, ecosystem services, occupational cycle. In 2012, the World Federation of Occupational Therapists (WFOT) published a position paper on ‘Environmental sustainability, sustainable practice within occupational therapy’. This publication marks an important milestone in bringing the issue of sustainability into occupational therapy practice. Sustainability can be defined as use of the environment and resources to meet ‘the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’ (World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987, p. 43). Occupational therapists’ expert knowledge on occupation gives them a significant insight into the big problems associated with environmental change. Despite this, there is still a need for more practice and research. Furthermore, for many occupational therapists questions of sustainability may still seem rather distant from their professional concerns and there is a need to explain to a broader audience the connection between occupational therapy and sustainability.
Occupation and adaptation in human history In order to explore the connection between occupational therapy and environmental sustainability, a useful place to begin is with the objectives of occupational therapy. The WFOT (2011) defines occupational therapy as a ‘client-centred health profession concerned with promoting health and wellbeing through occupation’. Occupations are the activities that people do from waking up to going to sleep. Chains of occupation make up the everyday life of each day and the accumulation of this
Mami Aoyama PhD, MSc, BA, OTR (Japan); Professor. Correspondence: Mami Aoyama, Department of Occupational Therapy, Nishikyushu University, Kanzaki 842-8585, Japan. Email: [email protected] Accepted for publication 26 May 2014. © 2014 Occupational Therapy Australia
everyday life makes human lives. Occupation has cultural and individual meanings in the society where each person lives and those meanings affect how occupations are chosen and performed. Occupational performance is associated with physical and mental functions and the experience of occupation makes identity. Processes of inheritance and interaction through human occupation transform society and culture and make history (Aoyama, 2012a). The historical accumulation of occupations reflects the way that humans adapt to environmental change through occupation. Although warnings about the current crisis of global sustainability are very alarming, there have already been several crisis points in human history. The first began 14 million years ago when climatic cooling led to a reduction in tropical forests and the growth of savanna ecosystems. Some primates moved from their relatively safe life in the trees to the more dangerous savanna, adapting to the new environment and evolving into humans in the process. After this, humans developed technologies to use fire, and to make tools, houses and clothes. A growing emphasis on hunting and meat-eating by hominids was associated with major cultural and anatomical changes. Between about 50,000 and 10,000 years ago, many large animals that were the main food source for humans became extinct and a food crisis developed. Facing this food crisis, humans spent more time processing acorns and other plants. Humans began to settle down, shifting their occupations from those of ‘travellers’ who moved following animals to ‘processors’ who stayed in one place and processed foods (Bettinger, 2001). This led to the development of farming. Able to produce a more secure source of food, humans developed state-based civilizations and an even more affluent and convenient material culture through modernity. However, as a result of this historical process, humankind is now experiencing an ecological crisis that will affect future wellbeing. The lifestyles and occupations of most humans have changed dramatically in the 100 years since the formation of occupational therapy. Over this period, there have also been immense increases in human impacts on the environment. Since 1917, for example, world population has almost quadrupled (Steffen et al., 2004). Since around 1960, the
VIEWPOINT
global economy expanded more than six times, food production has increased about 2.5 times, water use has doubled, and wood harvests for paper have tripled (Walker & Salt, 2006, p. 3). According to the World Wide Fund for Nature (2012), humans are now using the equivalent of 1.5 planets. It is now ‘beyond dispute’ that the burning of fossil fuels since the Industrial Revolution has led to anthropogenic climate warming (Rockstr€ om et al., 2009, p. 473). Pre-industrial atmospheric carbon dioxide levels were below 280 ppm (Rockstr€ om et al.), but have increased in recent years and according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (www.esrl. noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/weekly.html) reached 402 ppm in February 2014. Global warming resulting from this increase in CO2 levels is leading to water shortages, rising sea levels, the spread of disease and insect vectors, heat stroke, ecosystem changes, and a range of natural disasters (Costello et al., 2009).
Ecosystem services, occupation, and wellbeing In 2007, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reported it to be ‘very likely’ that global warming is caused by human activity (Pachauri & Reisinger, 2007). The emphasis on human activity in the IPCC shows that climate changes are linked to what occupational therapy calls ‘occupation’. In other words, human occupations are causing an unprecedented crisis of environmental sustainability. However, at the same time, this means that occupational therapy has the potential to help to change the human activities/occupations that are causing the harm. When I began to think about how occupational therapy might contribute to prevent the destruction of ecosystems and to maintain sustainability, an especially important stimulus was reading the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA) (2005). Ecosystem services are the benefits people obtain from ecosystems and comprise the life support system for humanity. Yet humans have come to act as if we were independent of that life support and ‘most people are unaware of their most basic ecological dependencies’ (Cornell, Costanza, S€ orlin & van der Leeuw, 2010, p. 426). The MEA classifies three types of ecosystem service: regulating services, which clean the air and water, provisioning services that provide food, fuel and medicines, and cultural services which provide leisure and sports and work to reduce mental stress. The MEA also argued that these ecosystem services are related to the elements of wellbeing: security, basic material for good life, health, good social relations and freedom of choice and action. Human health, wellbeing and quality of life rely closely on the availability and health of ecosystem services (MEA, 2005).
459 Existing models of the ecology of occupation within occupational therapy do not deal with these issues and I developed a model to help understand this relationship (Aoyama et al., 2012). In this model, occupation mediates ecosystem services with human health and wellbeing, and those occupations have a strong influence on the health of ecosystems. Although this model may stimulate occupational therapists to think more about the role of occupation in global environmental change, it does not begin to explore the complexities of the relationship. To explore this relationship further, I began to develop the concept of ‘occupational cycles’ in order to understand how our occupations actually transform ecosystem services into health and wellbeing. I realised that there was a need to begin with a relatively simple example that could show as many of the links between occupation and ecosystems as possible. Having worked on issues related to the Indigenous Ainu people of northern Japan, I used the traditional occupations of the Ainu to develop a heuristic model of occupational cycles that shows the basic connections between ecosystems and human life (Aoyama, 2012b). In this model, humans obtain food and fuel from forests, rivers, and the ocean. They bring home the resources they obtain and process them, using the meat, hides, bones and fat for food, clothing, tools and other essential items. These resources are used to maintain life. Waste disposed as part of this process is returned to the ecosystem. The chain of occupations stretching from obtaining resources to using products in everyday life is performed by the same individuals or community. People who are closely connected to the ecosystem are in a better position to understand ecosystem changes and such tight feedbacks loops may make it easier to change their occupations as required (cf. Walker & Salt, 2006). Although the above model is somewhat idealised, the contemporary occupational cycle in industrial societies is very different. The industrial cycle is marked by large resource inputs and by mass production, mass consumption and mass disposal of resources that cannot be returned to the ecosystem. Occupations are not performed by the same group but are divided into primary, secondary and tertiary industries. We buy things made by other people and use them in our everyday life. We have lost many of our direct connections with nature, especially those connections derived from making things that form part of an occupational cycle supporting everyday life. Losing these occupations has not only meant losing the joy of making things, but also losing the opportunity to learn about the crucial support of ecosystem services in maintaining everyday life, health and wellbeing. We no longer possess a view of gratitude towards nature and because of this loss of awareness of our dependence on ecosystem services, we are consuming resources beyond the capacity of the
© 2014 Occupational Therapy Australia
460
M. AOYAMA
ecosystem in order to meet our occupational needs and desires. As part of this process, we are disposing of huge amounts of trash, damaging ecosystem services, and causing climatic changes. Occupations satisfy our desires and make our lives affluent, but they can also damage the environment. If consumption increases at present rates, what will happen to the resources that support our lives and industries? The concept of ecosystem services shows that maintaining a sustainable environment is connected to the promotion of health and wellbeing, which is an aim of occupational therapy interventions. In order to build a sustainable future, we have to think about how to use and how to not use our limited energy and resources. This should be the same as when we make choices about how to use our limited money, what lifestyles we adopt, and the meanings of our occupations. Furthermore, we might need to participate more in occupations for conservation to make healthier ecosystems.
how those activities are issues of justice (Aoyama and Aki, 2013). Through progress towards sustainable community development, occupational therapy can help build a new future which combines sustainability with occupational justice. The 2012 WFOT position paper on sustainability ‘encourages occupational therapists working with clients wishing to live more sustainable lives to promote environmentally sustainable occupational performances and lifestyles’. For communities and individuals, the integration of occupations that are both meaningful and sustainable can lead to a new category of human activity that we might term ‘meaningful/sustainable occupations’. It might be argued that, by definition, all occupations are ‘meaningful’ (in either a positive or negative sense), but in the context of sustainability there is still a need to emphasise this quality, not least to counter the argument that occupations that are sustainable require sacrifice and therefore cannot also be meaningful in a positive sense.
Contributions of occupational therapy
Acknowledgements
The recent position statement on sustainability issued by the WFOT (2012) reflects important progress in engaging occupational therapy with this issue. The first step for occupational therapy to contribute to promoting environmental sustainability must be to recognise that this task is necessary to meet the very goals of occupational therapy in supporting health and wellbeing. Building this common consensus will require further discussion and then additions to the educational curriculum for world occupational therapy. Within this shared curriculum, concrete interventions will vary depending on the cultural context where occupational therapy is practiced as well as on the area of practice. Occupational therapists have the broad ability to enable individual capabilities and to empower social participation (Piskur, 2013). Social movements such as the Transition concept are beginning to transform many places into more sustainable communities (Hopkins, 2008) and occupational therapy could play a more proactive role in such endeavours. An occupational approach needs to use occupation and thus has to be based on real occupations performed in specific local contexts. Direct interventions aimed at making daily occupations more sustainable have been successfully attempted by Ikiugu and McCollister (2011), who have shown that occupational therapy can stimulate people to think about how their daily activities are connected to health, wellbeing and sustainability. Another type of intervention was a joint project developed between an occupational therapist and a professional artist to write an illustrated history of nature and society in a local town in Japan. Aimed at primary school children, this book attempts to get students to think more about how their daily activities are connected to the natural environment and also © 2014 Occupational Therapy Australia
This paper is a revised version of a lecture given in the Department of Occupational Therapy, Cardiff University in March 2012. I wish to thank Dikaios Sakellariou and the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation for their support for that visit to Cardiff. I am also grateful to the two anonymous reviewers for their detailed comments.
References Aoyama, M. (2012a). “Imi aru sagy o” to “sagy o no imi” [“Meaningful occupation” and “the meaning of occupation”]. Sagyo Ryoho Saga, 2, 3–9. (in Japanese). Aoyama, M. (2012b). Indigenous Ainu occupational identities and the natural environment in Hokkaido. In: N. Pollard & D. Sakellariou (Eds.), Politics of occupation-centred practice: Reflections on occupational engagement across cultures (pp. 106–127). Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. Aoyama, M. & Aki, S. (2013). Yokane Kanzaki: Rekishi kara manabo, shizen to shakai to hito no kurashi. [We like Kanzaki: Learning from history about nature, society and people’s lives]. Kanzaki: University of West Kyushu. Aoyama, M., Hudson, M. J. & Hoover, K. C. (2012). Occupation mediates ecosystem services with human wellbeing. Journal of Occupational Science, 19, 213–225. Bettinger, R. L. (2001). Holocene hunter-gatherers. In: G. M. Feinman & T. D. Price (Eds.), Archaeology at the millennium: A sourcebook (pp. 137–195). New York: Kluwer/Plenum. Cornell, S., Costanza, R., S€ orlin, S. & van der Leeuw, S. (2010). Developing a systematic “science of the past” to create our future. Global Environmental Change, 20, 426–427. Costello, A., Abbas, M., Allen, A., Ball, S., Bell, S., Bellamy, R. et al. (2009). Managing the health effects of climate change. Lancet, 373, 1693–1733. Hopkins, R. (2008). The transition handbook: From oil dependency to local resilience. Totnes: Green Books.
VIEWPOINT
Ikiugu, M. & McCollister, L. (2011). An occupation-based framework for changing human occupational behavior to address critical global issues. International Journal of Professional Practice, 2, 402–417. Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. (2005). Ecosystems and human well-being: Synthesis. Washington, DC: Island Press. Pachauri, R. K. & Reisinger, A. (Eds.). (2007). Climate change 2007: Synthesis report. Geneva: IPCC. Piskur, B. (2013). Social participation: Redesign of education, research, and practice in occupational therapy. Scandinavian Journal of Occupational Therapy, 20, 2–8. Chapin, Rockstr€ om, J., Steffen, W., Noone, K., Persson, A., F. S., III, Lambin, E. F. et al. (2009). A safe operating space for humanity. Nature, 461, 472–475. Steffen, W., Sanderson, A., Tyson, P. D., Jager, J., Matson, P. M., Moore, B., III et al. (2004). Global change and the Earth system: A planet under pressure. New York: Springer.
461 Walker, B. & Salt, D. (2006). Resilience thinking: Sustaining ecosystems and people in a changing world. Washington, DC: Island Press. World Commission on Environment and Development. (1987). Our common future. Oxford: Oxford University Press. World Federation of Occupational Therapists. (2011). Statement on occupational therapy. Retrieved April 25, 2014, from http://www.wfot.org/Portals/0/PDF/STATE MENT%20ON%20OCCUPATIONAL%20THERAPY%2030 0811.pdf World Federation of Occupational Therapists. (2012). Environmental sustainability, sustainable practice within occupational therapy. Retrieved April 25, 2014, from http://www.wfot.org/ResourceCentre.aspx WWF. (2012). Living planet report 2012: Summary. Retrieved April 25, 2014, from http://awsassets.panda. org/downloads/lpr_2012_summary_booklet_final.pdf
© 2014 Occupational Therapy Australia
Copyright of Australian Occupational Therapy Journal is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.
