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Empowering Indigenous communities through carbon justice, biodiversity, and faith—where land healing and human resilience rise together.

TAIWAN, October 28, 2025 /EINPresswire.com/ -- The Satoyama Mace Initiative (SMI) has been awarded the 2025 MUSE Creative Award in the Strategic Program – CSR Program category, recognizing its pioneering achievements in linking carbon markets with cultural heritage, Indigenous empowerment, and ecosystem restoration.
→ Official listing: https://museaward.com/winner-info.php?id=235814

This international honor celebrates the Initiative’s innovative framework that integrates climate mitigation, poverty eradication, and cultural renewal—demonstrating that environmental sustainability and social equity can advance hand in hand.

Bridging Climate Action and Human Dignity

The Satoyama Mace Initiative (SMI) is a community-based framework inspired by the Japanese concept of satoyama—the harmonious balance between people and nature. It demonstrates a successful, integrated approach to climate action that aligns with both the Paris Agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

At its core, SMI revitalizes Socio-Ecological Production Landscapes (SEPLS)—such as Japan’s satoyama areas and their global counterparts—by connecting ecological stewardship directly to sustainable economic benefits for marginalized communities. Through its robust carbon credit mechanism, the Initiative establishes a vital nexus between environmental integrity and social justice.

Institutional Recognition from the United Nations System

The methodology behind SMI has received formal endorsement from the International Partnership for the Satoyama Initiative (IPSI), coordinated by the United Nations University Institute for the Advanced Study of Sustainability (UNU-IAS).
This endorsement validates the Initiative’s community-based carbon credit model as a legitimate and replicable pathway toward integrated landscape management.
Details of the IPSI endorsement are available here:
https://satoyamainitiative.org/activities/ipsi-collaborative-activities/satoyama-mace-initiative-regional-revitalization-of-sepls-in-carbon-credit/

By combining academic rigor, local governance, and faith-inspired ethics, SMI provides a framework that bridges the gap between technical sustainability mechanisms and moral imperatives of justice and inclusion.

From Degradation to Renewal: Revitalizing the Jishui River Basin

The Initiative’s demonstration project began along Taiwan’s historic Jishui River Basin, once a landscape defined by floods, displacement, and ecological loss. Through re-wetting programs, soil restoration, and sustainable farming practices, SMI has transformed 3,900 hectares of degraded farmland into a living laboratory for nature-based solutions. Using innovative sustainability-based carbon reduction methods in this project is projected to capture over 700,000 tons of carbon annually, generating an estimated USD $28 million per year in verified carbon credits. Unlike conventional models where profits flow to intermediaries, the Satoyama Mace Initiative returns revenues directly to Indigenous communities and local farmers, ensuring that climate finance uplifts those most responsible for stewardship.

“What was once a site of displacement now becomes a cradle of ecological restoration and community empowerment,”
said Dr. Yen-Hsun Su in the SEPLS Carbon Credit Regional Revitalization Center.
“When the land heals, its people rise—and when people rise, the Earth itself begins to breathe again.”

Turning Carbon into a Currency of Justice

Across the Global South, the poorest populations often bear the harshest impacts of climate change—floods, droughts, and loss of livelihoods—while contributing least to global emissions. The Satoyama Mace Initiative offers an alternative narrative: one where land healing and human resilience rise together. By rooting carbon credits in biodiversity, traditional knowledge, and cultural values, SMI transforms financial mechanisms into instruments of justice and dignity. Each verified credit represents not only carbon reduction but also restored livelihoods, revived heritage, and renewed hope.
These credits are now being prepared for listing on Singapore’s carbon trading platforms, enabling global buyers to support verifiable, community-driven carbon offsets while ensuring revenues return to Indigenous stewards.

This approach fulfills SMI’s social mission:
To make carbon markets work for those who protect life itself—so that livelihoods and ecosystems may thrive together.

Alignment with the Sustainable Development Goals

SMI contributes directly to SDG 13 (Climate Action), SDG 15 (Life on Land), and SDG 1 (No Poverty), while advancing Goal 17 (Partnerships for the Goals) through collaboration with local cooperatives and international partners.
It also supports SDG 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth) by generating income streams through regenerative farming, eco-tourism, and artisanal production linked to sustainable landscapes.

This multidimensional impact illustrates how integrated ecological restoration can also serve as a catalyst for economic renewal and cultural resilience, ensuring that sustainability is not an external policy but an internal practice of community life.

Strategic Communication: Storytelling for a Just Transition

What sets SMI apart from conventional sustainability projects is its powerful use of creative communication.
By fusing research, art, and local action, SMI transforms climate justice from policy into a human story—reminding the world that creativity is not only aesthetic but also ethical.

“Satoyama Mace turns climate justice from policy into a human story—bridging research, art, and local action to reveal creativity as finding beauty in restoration and meaning in resilience,” said Dr. Chen-Piao Yen to SMI.
“It shows how the creative spirit can heal both landscapes and lives.”

Through multimedia storytelling, international exhibitions, and educational outreach, the Initiative invites policymakers, faith leaders, and youth movements to see climate action not as a burden but as an opportunity for shared renewal.

Faith, Science, and Integral Ecology

The Satoyama Mace Initiative has also drawn moral inspiration from Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato Si’, which calls humanity to hear both “the cry of the Earth and the cry of the poor.” Its philosophy of Integral Ecology recognizes that environmental and social issues are intertwined; the healing of the planet cannot be separated from the healing of communities. This theological dimension gained further resonance after the Holy See’s correspondence affirming support for the Initiative’s holistic approach to climate action. By integrating spirituality and science, SMI positions itself as a bridge between faith-based moral responsibility and evidence-based environmental policy.

“A true ecological approach always becomes a social approach; it must integrate questions of justice in debates on the environment.”
— Laudato Si’, No. 49

Global Collaboration and Future Expansion

Following the recognition from the MUSE Creative Awards, SMI is scaling its model across the Asia-Pacific, Africa, and Latin America regions.
The Initiative’s upcoming Community-Based Carbon Service Stations will serve as regional hubs offering MRV (Measurement, Reporting & Verification) systems, technical training, and equitable carbon trading platforms aligned with KMGBF, CDM, ISO 14064 and 14065 standards.
These service stations will help local actors quantify, certify, and trade their carbon assets, ensuring transparency and fair benefit-sharing.

Simultaneously, SMI is working with Air Carbon Exchange (ACX) and Climate Impact X (CIX) to formalize carbon credit listings, ensuring compliance with international voluntary carbon market standards while preserving community ownership.

Recognition as a Model of Corporate and Collective Responsibility

The MUSE Creative Awards—organized by the International Awards Associate (IAA)—honor excellence in design, innovation, and communication worldwide.
SMI’s award in the Strategic Program – CSR Program category reflects the Initiative’s success in positioning sustainability not merely as corporate compliance but as a collective moral and creative mission. According to the MUSE Awards Jury, the Satoyama Mace Initiative stands out for its strategic vision, cross-sector collaboration, and emotional storytelling, setting a new benchmark for CSR excellence. This recognition adds to the Initiative’s growing list of international acknowledgments and further establishes it as a replicable model for just and inclusive climate solutions.

From Taiwan to the Global South: A Movement of Hope

The story of the Satoyama Mace Initiative is the story of transformation—of land, of livelihoods, and of imagination.
Where once the soil was barren, communities now cultivate both crops and confidence.
Where once despair prevailed, now a vision of co-existence takes root.

In an earlier feature from the Associated Press, the Initiative was described as “a turning point for communities where the poor and the planet once withered together”. The recognition by the MUSE Awards affirms that such hope can indeed become a global reality.

A Vision Rooted in Faith and the Future

In theological language echoing Laudato Si’, SMI embodies the call to ensure that “the poor and the planet no longer wither together.”
It seeks to prove—through measurable data, transparent finance, and spiritual conviction—that healing the Earth is inseparable from healing humanity.

“Our mission is to weave compassion into carbon,” said Dr. Shu-Mei Wang in National Taiwan University.
“We envision a world where every restored wetland and every replanted tree becomes a living hymn of gratitude—where ecological balance and human dignity rise together.”

As the Satoyama Mace Initiative expands its partnerships, it invites governments, NGOs, and faith-based organizations to join in building a future where sustainability is not just a technical framework but a moral covenant between generations.

About the Satoyama Mace Initiative (SMI)

The Satoyama Mace Initiative is a global sustainability program that integrates satoyama principles into carbon finance and community development.
Working with Indigenous peoples, farmers, and faith communities across the Global South, SMI develops science-based, culturally grounded carbon credit models that restore ecosystems while reducing poverty.
Its headquarters are located in Tainan, Taiwan, and its work is endorsed by the UNU-IAS/IPSI and supported by regional academic and cooperative networks.

Shu-Mei Wang
SEPLS Carbon Credit Regional Revitalization Center
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