A Green Dawn in Aichi
by Douglas Jarrell

JAPAN – For years, Japan has tended to ignore its wildlife and its environmentalists. One example is Hirofumi Yamashita, winner of this year’s Goldman Prize, who fought for 20 years to save the Isahaya Wetlands in Kyushu, the main migratory bird stopover in Japan.

Last year, a large portion of Isahaya was cut off and drained for a government land reclamation project. The logic behind this public works project is incomprehensible to everyone. The project was proposed decades ago when Japan might actually have needed more agricultural land. But with the national government aggressively reducing the acreage of rice production, it is difficult to understand why this outdated project wasn’t canceled.

Even before receiving the Goldman prize, Yamashita was gaining the attention of a growing number of politicians, including Naoto Kan of the Democratic Party (DP), the biggest winner of the latest Upper House election. One of the DP’s major criticisms of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has been that they promote useless, expensive, environmentally-destructive public works projects. With growing domestic and international support, Yamashita hopes to convince the government to reopen the metal gates of Isahaya and let life return to these valuable wetlands.

Dunlins Done In?
With the loss of the Isahaya Wetlands, the Fujimae Wetlands is now Japan’s largest migratory bird stopover. It records the highest spring visits by dunlins, up to 12,000 birds a day. Now these birds, whose migrations take them from Siberia to Australia, are in danger of losing their major feeding and resting place because of its proximity to Nagoya. Like most large cities, Nagoya has a waste disposal problem. The city sanitation department warned of a disaster if a new dump site isn’t created by the year 2000 and has declared Fujimae an ideal site for a garbage dump. Two large waste incinerators already operate on the edge of the wetlands. Nagoya Mayor Matsubara has publicly refused to consider three alternate sites. Rising of the Green Sun?

Things may finally be starting to look up for the environment now that the Liberal Democratic Party is losing its grip in national and on local elections across the country.

The results of the July 12 Upper House election may be the first indication of upcoming change in government policy. In Aichi Prefecture, normally a safe area for conservatives, the LDP lost all three available seats. The big win by Naoto Kan and his Democratic Party in Aichi indicates the voters’ strong desire for change. So strong was this desire that even Aichi’s Minister of the Environment, Hiroshi Oki, lost his seat to the Communist Party – an historic victory for the Communist Party, which its gained a seat in the Upper House for the first time. The Communist candidate emphasized her opposition to the Fujimae project and to the 2005 International Exposition, another project that would result in substantial environmental damage.

Exposing the Expo
As Aichi Prefecture prepares to hold the 2005 International Expo with its theme, “Coexistence with Nature,” environmental protection should be an obvious sub-theme. Aichi’s Earth-friendly expo theme won out over Calgary as the site for the 2005 International Expo.

A close look at the Expo plans, however, reveals prefectural governor Reiji Suzuki’s true intentions: to promote a series of wasteful, environmentally-destructive public works projects, supposedly to prime the local economy. These projects are just as likely to line the governor’s pockets with political contributions from construction companies.

Seto, the site for the Expo, is a centuries-old pottery town about an hour’s drive from Nagoya. Large parts of Seto’s Kaisho Forest – one of the prefecture’s most biologically rich areas and home to several endangered insect, bird and plant species – will be destroyed to make way for the Expo’s pavilions. A major highway would cut through the middle of the forest, disrupting the watershed and polluting mountain streams. Auto traffic from the projected 25 million visitors will increase local air pollution, rendering the surviving forest uninhabitable to many species.

Aichi Prefecture has one of the worst environmental records in Japan. Now it finds itself in the difficult position of having to pay lip service to a theme that it clearly doesn’t want. Governor Suzuki’s embarrassment is evident from his recent statement that the theme of “Coexistence with Nature” is too difficult for anyone but an academic to understand.

Newspaper polls indicate that only about 25 percent the populace supports the Expo. At the end of 1997, 130,000 Aichi voters signed a petition asking for a referendum on locating the Expo at Kaisho Forest. The LDP- dominated prefectural assembly killed the proposal as soon as it came to the floor in March 1998, saying that a referendum was unnecessary.

The future of Aichi’s environment is at a crossroads. Changes in Japanese environmental policy appear more possible than ever before with the LDP grip on politics loosening. Senior LDP politicians no longer seem to have the vision needed to bring the country out of an economic slump, so voters are defecting to the DP.

If the DP becomes the ruling party in next year’s elections, it will put a new emphasis on the environment and the right of citizens to be heard. Even if the DP remains in the opposition, the LDP will probably lose its majority require the DP’s support. That support can only come at the price of the LDP reconsidering its economic and environmental mistakes.

Douglas Jarrell is a 20-year resident of Japan.