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This paper aims at clarifying the distinctive features of “Landcare”, which is a well-known movement in Australia and began in Victoria in 1986, from both theoretical and practical points of view. Landcare is a distinctive approach that adopts a “bottom-up” (community-based) and holistic methodology for tackling local environmental problems and has contributed not only to solving local environmental problems effectively, but also to building social resilience and community networking to adapt to the crises that farmers have faced in Australia. Examining the characteristics and principles of Landcare in light of sustainable development (SD) theory, this paper argues that an existing micro-hydropower development project in the town of Gokase in Japan operates on similar principles to Landcare, i.e., the production and preservation of capital assets (natural and produced), knowledge sharing, and institutions for creating networks among the residents in Gokase toward sustainable community development.

This paper outlines the prerequisites and process of establishing of a community-based energy centre for sustainable agriculture practices in a rural village in the Vietnamese Mekong Delta. The centre was constructed by community consensus building and consisted of two main components including a community house and a community-biogas production system. The community house acts as a place where local people organize community activities such as traditional festivals and the production local products for local markets as well as community tourism. The community-biogas production system consists of a 41,6 m3 large biogas digester. The digester utilizes collected bio-degraded organic wastes from the local households and waste from animal husbandry as well as additional available green biomass such as water hyacinth. Methane produced will be used for cooking activities at the centre and delivered to the households in the community. Local people have contributed their own labours to build and manage the community-energy centre. Capacity building for the community is supported by experts of universities in both Vietnam and Japan. The community further intents to self-organize themselves to earn benefits through sustainable agricultural production such as planting organic vegetable and fruit trees, animal and fish raising, etc. This model is the first step in promoting the village as the “the most beautiful village” to clean up and promote environmental and sustainable technologies in the village. Furthermore, it is also a good option for inclusion in upgrading criteria for new rural development issued by Vietnamese government.

There was an unprecedented growth of SHP (small hydropower) in Japan during recent years because the government has provided a high FIT (USD 0.32/kWh) for SHP development projects of less than 200 kW. The public and private sectors are committed to harnessing this natural energy to achieve the renewable energy goal as well as to improve local communities social and economic conditions. This paper will discuss about renewable energy initiatives by a food corporation enterprise (FCOOP) based in Fukuoka prefecture of Japan to reduce their net carbon emissions. A detailed approach for social enterprises-based SHP development has been discussed which will be a role model concept for other social enterprises in Japan and in the world that are willing to reduce CO2 emissions. Also, this kind of project connects urban stake holders with local community where resources are available and it leads to development of the local community living standards. As a demonstrated example, a case study of a 20 kW SHP installed in Japan by a FCOOP has been discussed.

Ensuring access to affordable, reliable, sustainable modern energy is a key challenge in reducing poverty in developing countries. Off-grid rural electrification based on decentralized renewable energy has been recognized as an effective way to increase access to energy in remote areas. However, there is some doubt about its long-term sustainability. Previous studies have indicated that once renewable energy generation facilities are installed, the responsibility for operation and maintenance is often handed over to the local community, and, eventually, the project fails because of a lack of maintenance budget. This paper discusses issues related to the sustainability of MHP-based rural electrification as a case study in a remote village in West Java, Indonesia, that is deeply steeped local traditions. A complementary approach between the community and a private company was introduced to improve the economic sustainability of MHPPs while simultaneously conserving local traditions and livelihoods.

Small scale hydropower energy goes a long way to fire up community development. Until 1920-30s, Japanese hydropower techniques had been established on a global level in each local area. However, after the second World War, the main energy resource was changed. This has resulted in a local decline in micro-hydro technical expertise and fewer waterwheel makers throughout Japan. At the present, we are going to work to re-make small scale hydropower technologies and markets. In this paper, we discuss and propose improvements to the “Japanese” small scale hydropower technology and production techniques, especially Pelton type wheel. The Pelton wheel technology of Nepal was freely available in the public domain so we decided to design a system based on that. We decided to designed by 3D-CAD and to make our Pelton buckets using a 3D printer. We compared the power generation capacity of our waterwheel with one purchased from New Zealand to investigate its effectiveness and efficiency. In our results of the experiment, the power generation curves for each turbine are approximately equal. The power increases continuously with increases in the flow rate. The maximum power generated by each turbine is approximately the same. This shows that it is possible to design a Pelton bucket that has a power generation efficiency comparable to a purchased bucket. The next step, the Pelton turbine designed in this study was chosen to be included in the Itoshima micro-hydro power generation system. So we scaled up and redesigned the Pelton turbine. In addition, we conducted a survey involving waterwheel makers regarding connecting to cost reduction. Using a 3D printer has the following advantages: 1.) Design deficiencies and failed designs can be identified at an early stage. 2.) Different forms of waterwheel can be made at low cost and in a short amount of time, which can then be used to run water experiments.