Structuring of a network for the purpose of sharing information among members related to Asian biomass and developing mutual understanding is important. There are two streams in this term. The one is Biomass Asia Forum, which was organized mainly by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fishery, Japan, and the other is Biomass ASEAN Project, which is proceeded mainly by the National Institute of Advanced and Industrial Science and Technology, Japan (AIST), and Japan International Research Center for Agricultural Science (JIRCAS) with the subsidies from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Japan. In the year of 2004, these two projects started independently, but soon it was notice that both projects have similar goals, and it was decided to have a joint-workshop, which was the 1st Biomass Asia Workshop, held in January, 2005, in Tokyo and Tsukuba, Japan. In December, 2005, the 2nd Biomass Asia Workshop was held in Bangkok, Thailand, and Biomass Asia Forum was held in January, 2006 in Tokyo. Through these workshops and forum, the situation of biomass in Asian countries was studied, and the purpose of its effective use was discussed. Based on these concept, the network development was discussed at the 3rd Biomass Asia Workshop in Novemer, 2006. This flow is shown in Fig. 1.

The 4th Biomass Asia Workshop was held in November, 2007 in Shah Alam, Malaysia. The 5th workshop is to be held in China.

To overview the trend of recent biomass activities, the program of the 4th Biomass Asia Workshop is also shown here.

WS (Biomass ASEAN) Forum (MAFF support)

2005.1

Organization for Asian Biomass

Fig. A1.2.1 Events regarding the networking on Asian Biomass utilization.