People in industrialized countries are mostly in socioeconomic systems that are characterized by mass production, mass consumption and mass disposal. These systems are called "unsustainable." But we should remember that since these frameworks have been created by people, they can be changed by people. Young people are especially the ones that need the power to change such systems with problem solving skills.

Unfortunately, at many schools in Japan students don't seem to have learned how to solve the problems and how to make the necessary changes in the society. Indeed there are many opportunities where they are encouraged to actively initiate or participate in actions for changes for a better world. Everybody can do something at home, in schools and local communities.

You can also interact with business people in corporations and people involved in your local or national government. You will be surprised to find you can do so many things to create positive changes around you. These changes, even if they are small, will spread further and further like chain reactions and grow bigger. We can see such chain reactions taking place everywhere in Japan and throughout the world.

It is unlikely that any other animal typifies the word "symbiosis" as well as sloth. It lives through co-operation. The Sloth has succeeded to live a non-competitive, peaceful, co-existence with minimal negative impact. They typify a renewable, recyclable lifestyle under the canopy while other mammals came down to the ground to compete in a struggle for existence under the slogan "faster, bigger, stronger". Compared to the greedy, destructive, violent ways of humans - they are truly saints.

The lifestyle of sloth has so many lessons for human beings survival in the 21st century. It is clear that if we continue to promote the dominant paradigm of infinite growth, with our behaviour " faster, bigger, stronger", the economic system pushing mass production and mass consumption and a scientific, reductionist view of nature we will clearly not be able to survive in the next millennium.

In the workshop, Naoko Tanemori will give a brief outline of what "Fair Trade" is all about, and the progress it has achieved in Japan. Active discussion with participants will be welcome about the negative effects of conventional trade, and about how to promote Fair Trade as an alternative for a fairer and greener world.