Blackfish explores the capture and treatment of killer whales in marine entertainment parks; (Japan: 4 captive Orcas); ocean sanctuaries as a way forward...

Blackfish, a new documentary film by Gabriela Cowrperthwaite explores the inhumane capture and treatment of killer whales by marine entertainment parks. 

Because of a huge response to initial broadcasts, CNN is airing encores of this program: Saturday at 7:00 p.m. ET / 4:00 p.m. PT and on Sunday at 9:00 p.m. ET / 6:00 p.m. PT/

The documentary takes the viewer on an emotional roller coaster ride starting with breathtaking footage of orcas swimming in the wild then shifting to the cruel capture of orca babies. In their natural habitat, these magnificent sea mammals swim 100 miles a day. In captivity, they are barely able to move around, damage their teeth on metal railings, and act out aggressively towards each other...

Interviewee John Crowe cried as he describes the legacy of orca capture for entertainment purposes, spotlighting the notorious Penn Cove captures in 1970 by scientists in Washington state.  Mothers and mature family members refused to leave the babies behind in the nets; several adult whales died.  The scientists then cut the whales open, filled their bodies with rocks, sinking them, to destroy of evidence of what they had done.  Orcas' brains are much more developed emotionally and socially than those of humans; they live in social groups called pods; males never leave their mothers, so separating members from their pods is an act of emotional and social violence.

Blackfish explains how killer whales become deformed (their tails bend in a weird way); their teeth and health are compromised, and why their life span is reduced (from that of human lifespan equivalent to 25-30 years) in captivity. 

Sadly, Japan has followed the US model of marine entertainment parks; eight of the 48 orcas held captive worldwide are in two Japanese sites: Kamogawa SeaWorld  (4 orcas) and Port of Nagoya Aquarium (4 orcas).  In the past, an animal park purchased orcas from the Taiji dolphin/whale kills, but none of these survived. 

Live orcas and other small cetaceans have also been offered for sale in Japan. Certain collectors working with the Japanese have defended the capturing of cetaceans there for the same reasons as for Iceland - that the animals are being killed anyway and that local respect for live whales and dolphins may well result. But California marine mammal veterinarian and dolphin collector Jay C. Sweeney, filmed in Japan overseeing dolphin captures, seemed uncomfortable working around the Japanese fishermen and tried to deny he worked with them.

The workers were fishermen who practice "oikomiryo", the drive fishery that has killed thousands of small whales and dolphins over the years at Taiji and Iki Island. Environmental groups have questioned the integrity of marine parks buying cetaceans from a country that engages in the killing of small whales and dolphins along its coast and continues to fight the world-wide moratorium against whaling. For at least some species, the captures of small whales and dolphins in Japan have been accomplished in a much more casual fashion, with mortalities during and soon after capture. Of course, the dolphins, pilot whales and false killer whales (another species in the same family as orcas) captured alive and sent to Japanese marine parks or exported world-wide, would have been sent to the fish market for slaughter.

The number of orca captures in Japan stands at thirteen, and no marine park outside of Japan has purchased orcas there. And Kamogawa Sea World, the main longstanding marine park to exhibit orcas in Japan, has usually turned to North America or Iceland for their orcas, although it would be cheaper to buy locally, and easier, without import permits or long-distance transport. Recently even Shirahama World Safari, which had bought four orcas from Taiji fishermen, two of which died within two months of capture, decided to buy Icelandic orcas in the spring of 1990 - despite the cost of flying the whales 7,500 miles (1@,000 km) to Japan. The better marine parks do not want to be associated with the Japanese captures, partly because of the inexperience of the captors with live animals, but perhaps also, because of the international stigma attached to the slaughters in the annual drive fishery.

In 2011, Nami, a female killer whale died from ulcerative colitis at the Port of Nagoya Public Aquarium. She was the last surviving orca captured in Japanese waters (Taiji). The Orca Project describes her life:

In October of 1985, Nami (also known as Nami-chan) was barely 3 years old when she was captured off the coast of Taiji, Japan along with Goro, a younger male orca, and both were sent to the Taiji Whale Museum. One month after their capture, Goro was sold to Nanki Adventure World in Japan where he spent 19 years in captivity until his death from pneumonia on January 21, 2005.

Nami remained at the Taiji Whale Museum for 24 years in an enclosed sea pen at the seaside marine park until June 19 of last year when she was sent by barge on a 23-hour journey to the Port of Nagoya Public Aquarium to become a part of a breeding program in conjunction with Kamogawa SeaWorld.

The only other orca to reside at the Port of Nagoya, a female named Ku, arrived on a breeding loan from the Taiji Whale Museum in October, 2003. She died nearly 5 years later on September 19, 2008 from heart failure. She never bore a calf via artificial insemination (AI) during her time at Nagoya.

Nami was to take over where her former tank-mate Ku had left off. It is unknown if the planned attempts at AI began prior to Nami’s death. Unfortunately, her life was cut short and her death shows the lengths marine parks are willing to go to in their attempt to keep the marine mammal entertainment industry alive and profitable…

Cowrperthwaite, who had regularly taken her children to Sea World (and was not an animal activist) prior to starting this film, and other captive marine mammal advocates say there's a win-win in this sad situation: marine entertainment parks should open oceanside sanctuaries Because of health conditions resulting from captivity, orcas (and others) cannot be set free.  However, oceanside sanctuaries would let them live the remainder of their lives in more humane, more natural conditions; marine parks could still sell tickets and make profits; people would feel uplifted from witnessing kind treatment of wild animals; the world would be a better place.

This would also be a way out for Taiji. The cove could be transformed into a sanctuary and happy educational tourist venue.  The Japanese government could subsidize this endeavor the way it subsidizes whale and dolphin kills. This would be a lot more profitable on every level, from image, to revenues, to karma.

Such would also be sanctuaries for humans: places of respite and healing from the innumerable forms of everyday violence that we are all subjected to and sometimes complicit with...In such sanctuaries, we could foster the imaginings of a kinder future for all life...

- JD

Earth Garden Festival @ Yoyogi Park, Tokyo - Sunday, Oct. 27

More info: http://www.earth-garden.jp/festival/31251/

Singer & Organic Farmer Yae: "That's what I want to prove by living this way, to show how important it is to live in a system that is sustainable and not simply going on exploiting and harming the land..."

Via webdocumentary AU-DELA DU NUAGE °Yonaoshi 3.11, singer and organic farmer Yae—daughter of two renowned Article 9, nuclear-free, environmentalist activists—singer Tokiko Kato and the late author Toshio Fujimoto, who created Daichi-wo-Mamoru-Kai (The Association to Preserve the Earth), an organic farming and food distribution organization and the Kamogawa Natural Kingdom, an organic farm/community in Chiba:

There's certainly something in this soil that protects us. That's what I want to prove by living this way, to show how impt is is to live in a system that is sustainable and not simply going on exploiting and harming the land...

We need to share ideas and build a future together...

All this didn't begin with 11 March 2011.

For many years, we've been subjected to many forms of contamination without even realizing it.

An yet, we're still alive. It's still a mystery, the life force, the power of life. It has so much undiscovered potential.

In the next five or ten years, we still don't really have any idea what diseases or physical changes we might see in children. Perhaps some incurable disease.

But at this stage, we don't know anything yet. We will think about what needs to be done when such things do happen. Together with the parents of the  little children, we'll be looking for solutions.

People are quick to forget. With the passage of time, we forget the past and look towards the future without learning from our mistakes.

In Japan in particular we have allowed things to happen during and after the war as if we didn't learn from our mistakes. We haven't learned from our mistakes. It's as if we were made to forget.

Today, we should teach the true history of Japan, the things we have done for the sake of the children, as well as for people like me so that we can reflect together on how we should behave in the future.

Iitate mura is a wonderful village, so very beautiful...The people tried to be self-sufficient in energy production....But from one day to the next, it has become a radiation hotspot, with high levels or radioactivity. Despite this, people in the village yearn to return to their homes.

I read in a magazine about a 102-year-old gentleman who committed suicide in one of the temporary shelters....If ever he'd remain behind in the contaminated area, he would probably have been irradiated, but he certainly wouldn't have died immediately. He had lived for 102 years but ended up taking his own life.

My father used to say: "If you don't take pleasure in life, then you're not really living...

---

http://www.yonaoshi311.com

Singer and farmer, Yae is the daughter of the famous singer and anti-nuclear activist Tokiko Kato. Yae has written a song for UNESCO, dedicated to the children who were affected by the triple disaster of 11 March. She herself chose a different lifestyle when leaving Tokyo to live in the area referred to by her father as « the kingdom of nature of Kamogawa ».

We are in Chiba, two hours from Tokyo by train, where the land has also been affected by radiation. They can still plant the rice, and people come from Tokyo at each season to help and learn rice planting.

(Many more video interviews by Keiko Courdy at the AU-DELA DU NUAGE °Yonaoshi 3.11 website).

Some background on Yae, Tokiko Kato, and the late Toshio Fujimoto: 

"Soil and Peace Festival 2011 – it would never be the same again" (Keibo Shinichi Oiwa Tsuji, Slow Japan blog, Nov. 24, 2011)

"Hands-on farm training new path for city slickers" (Hayato Ishii, JT, Jan. 11, 2006)

"POWER TO THE PEOPLE: Tokiko Kato gives voice to anti-nuclear power movement" (Louis Templado, Asahi, Jan. 15, 2012)

Filmmaker Hitomi Kamanaka: "We need to face the problem otherwise it will never be solved..."

Via webdocumentary AU-DELA DU NUAGE °Yonaoshi 3.11, filmmaker Hitomi Kamanaka:

The people of Fukushima think it's too late.

They think they have been contaminated and the country has abandoned them. They can't do anything about it so they better live without worrying.

A lot of people think like this. Today I read in the newspaper that the children of Fukushima say they will die anyway, so there's no need to study...

It is not only the cancer risk that grows. For example, heart attacks also. Cesium goes into the muscles...The risk of strokes also grows...Diabetes also...

In spite of that, they say everything is fine.

This is because these are diseases anyone can have...

Concerning the accident, we all have to face this: Face the fact that we've been contaminated and that it's not over, that there is still no serious compensation even though we lost our way of life, and that for a long time, our health will be exposed to danger.

Can we just go along saying, " Everything is fine."

We need to face the problem otherwise it will never be solved.

For many years, Japanese electricity companies have hidden information.  In 2007, it was revealed that nuclear power plants had hidden many accidents.  On this occasion, a complete report was ordered, with many details. It revealed 456 accidents. Among them, there had been very serious accidents. And they had hidden everything...

We lost trust...

They knew there was a meltdown but they didn't say it.

To avoid the explosion and release internal pressure, they vent radioactive vapor into the air, releasing a lot of radiation. But when they did this, they didn't inform the population to escape in a certain direction. They didn't reveal the quantity released into the air. They didn't say anything.

And it was only after the accident, one, two, three months later, that the inhabitants of the cities nearby, Futaba, Okuma, or Minami-Soma, finally learnt about the facts, one after the other.

This was an unbelievable situation.

They were not prepared for crisis management, although these facts were openly revealed, one year has passed, and there is still no one to take responsibility.

Before and after the disaster, the very same people are still in charge.  It is an incredible situation.

If they had changed to new people, people we can trust, it would have been different...

---

Hitomi Kamanaka is a Japanese documentary filmmaker known particularly for her films on the danger of atomic power and the nuclear industry in Japan. In 2012, she directed a movie on internal contamination where she interviews 4 doctors from Japan and Russia who studied the consequences of Hiroshima, Tchernobyl, and now Fukushima.

ドキュメンタリー映画監督, 鎌仲ひとみは2012年に発表した映画で、広島、チェルノビルそして福島での被曝（ひ

ばく）の影響を研究している日本とロシアの４人の医師にインタビューしている。

---

Interview conducted by Keiko Courdy for 霧の向こう＊AU-DELA DU NUAGE°Yonaoshi 3.11_ Japan Webdoc project in Tokyo on June 18, 2012

Background: Hitomi Kamanaka's website: http://kamanaka.com/

Background: 

Hitomi Kamanaka's website: http://kamanaka.com/

"Complicity and Victimhood: Director Kamanaka Hitomi's Nuclear Warnings" (Norma Field, The Asia-Pacific Journal, May 2, 2011)

Kyoto: The Forest Within the Gate - A transcendent journey in poems and photographs to Japan's ancient capital

A few years ago, when I received the chapbook incarnation of Edith Schiffert's and John Einarsen's Kyoto: The Forest Within the Gate, I felt like I had been surprised by a dream of the ancient capital in the mail.  A new incarnation of this luminous book has been launched; with an IndieGoGo campaign to finance publishing costs. They are asking Kyoto lovers to help support and be a part of this beautiful project (JD):

                                                  Resting on the earth

                                                  who needs satori or faith?

                                                  Embrace what holds you!


Imagine a book enfolding some of the best expat poetry and photography of the 1200-year-old city of Kyoto, cultural and spiritual heart of Japan. For five decades Edith Shiffert, now age 97, has written haiku and poems inspired by the ancient capital. John Einarsen has been making striking yet serene photographs of Kyoto for more than three decades.

Now Edith and John share their vision and love of this magical city with the book Kyoto: The Forest Within the Gate (144 pp, more than 100 duotone photographs and 30 poems). In addition, three renowned writers on Japanese culture, Marc P. Keane, Diane Durston and Takeda Yoshifumi, have contributed illuminating essays. Rona Conti's calligraphy is yet another treat for the eyes.

We plan to publish an edition of this singular book. Its design is complete to the last detail, but for this first edition to go to print we need your help.

Take this transcendent journey to Kyoto by contributing today. All donations are warmly appreciated. Those giving $60 or more will receive a signed edition of this remarkable book.

Organic tea farmer Ayumi Kinezuka on protecting Japan's rich family farm culture, food safety, and the need for reconnection—with each other, with land and nature...

In this 5-min. video (via Reciprocity/Food Sovereignty Japan) 
Ayumi Kinezuka talks about her family farming cooperative; community-supported farming;  how her father embraced organic farming after reading Rachel Carson's Silent Spring,
 and Nouminren, the farmers' union.

Ayumi Kinezuka, after getting degrees in psychology and sociology at the University of California (Berkeley). returned home 10 years ago, to help carry on her family's organic tea farm near Fujieda, Shizuoka.

Her father, Toshiaki Kinezuka, is one of the pioneers of the global organic farming movement:  Thirty-seven years ago, he shifted his 2 hectare (5-acre) tea and orange farm to organic and founded a group with several tea growers that became Hito to No, Shizen wo Tsunagu Kai (Connecting People, Agriculture, and Nature). Their organic green and black teas are popular worldwide among tea enthusiasts.

In 2011, after they were hit (as was most of Japan) with fallout from the Fukushima meltdowns, the Kinezukas decided, at great financial loss, to destroy their entire crop from that year, even though the radiation readings of their tea were far below the Japanese government's safety standard.  The reason: as organic farmers, food safety is their integral to their ethos and they felt responsible to maintain their high standard of purity to protect their customers.

They are now continuing to recover from the accident, while strengthening organic food culture in many ways:  hosting WOOLF interns; deepening relationships with their consumers and other farmers, and welcoming urban dwellers in need of reconnecting with nature.

This is an inspirational family and community -- on every level.  The Kinezukas and their farming cooperative keep in contact with their customers and sell directly to them at their website, (naturalitea.com/), a trove of info on tea and the rich traditional Japanese way of life (reverencing nature, farming, food, relationships, and community).

In the second -part (5-min) of a 3-part series of video interviews,  

Ayumi Kinezuka relates why she became a farmer:

 it is a field in which she can help connect people with each other and with nature 

In the  final short video, she talks about miso-making, and rice-growing with friends (non-farmers who visit the Kinezuka farm during rice-planting, weeding, and harvesting seasons to enjoy connecting with the earth, others, and eating fresh, organic local foods).  She brings her social psychological and outreach skills to creating and deepening awareness, connections in all that she does.

Also in two (10- and 15-min.) videos at the same webpage, Toshiaki Kinezuka shares his story of why and how he became an organic farmer.

The above videos were made in January, 2011, during a peak  the Japanese organic farming movement, which had been developing steadily since the 1970's.  The multiple meltdowns at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant have hit farmers throughout Japan (not just in Fukushima) hard, especially organic farmers like the Kinezukas.

In this Women Rising radio interview (her interview begins at 20:30 of the tape), Ayumi Kinezuka describes her organic philosophy and how her family and their organic tea cooperative decided, at great financial loss, to destroy their entire 2011 crop  to protect the food safety of their customers.

I'm living in the community, hoping to protecting the rich culture we've inherited...There are not many young farmers...So when I came back ten years ago, one of the things I thought was very important was to have a network of young farmers because, first we need to share an understanding of our current situation...When I attended the youth meeting of Nouminren, I met a lot of young people and they are facing the same challenges.  As I talked to them, it was very inspiring, so I suggested to La Via Campesina to organize the youth...  Since 2008, we have started a regional youth gathering...

I think farming is not just the production of food. To produce the food is more like an expression of our own ideology or our own beliefs. So participating in La Via Campesina meetings and Nouminren meetings, I'm receiving a lot of information and education about how to perceive the world, how to perceive the current agricultural system, and so on. It's given me a lot of inspiration in that way...

I live in Shizuoka Prefecture, which is west of Tokyo, close to Mount Fuji. From the Fukushima nuclear power plant, it's about 400 km (260 miles) away.  I never imagined our farm would be affected when the accident happened. So after we harvested the tea, we sent our tea samples for testing and we found 350 becquerels of cesium in our tea. At the end of the second harvest season, after June, we found 150 becquerels. And the last harvest in October, there was 76 becquerels. Even though the government regulation at that time was 500 becquerels, and according to them, since it's below the regulation level, they say it's safe.

But as an organic farmer, we have never used any chemicals, herbicides, pesticides, or chemical fertilizers in our fields to ensure the safety of our tea and food, and also to protect the environment. It was a very difficult time for us. We did not know how to understand this reality that our tea was contaminated.

So, collectively, since we're a group of organic tea farmers, we discussed and decided we were going to destroy all the tea we produced that year. All together, we destroyed more than 20 tons of tea that was produced in 2011.  Since then, we've been testing the tea at least three times a year to make it obvious to the consumer the truth about the tea.

We are very upset at what happened because we have been working so hard to build a community of organic farming, and at the same time, we've been working very hard to build very good relationships with consumers and producers. But all of a sudden, without our control, this accident put radioactivity into our tea. What's scary about radioactivity is that you can't see it, feel it, taste it, smell it, but it's still there. The accident contaminated our soil, air, water, and also all the plants, and, of course, our bodies too. We have to be very clear that we can't co-exist with this dangerous generation of power.

Now many people in Japan are living in cities so they are detached from nature. Even though human beings are part of nature, we forget that, and that is driving people crazy. So organic farming has the responsibility of connecting people back with nature. It is very nice when people come to my farm and they have a very beautiful smile on their face, and their eyes are just bright. That really tells us what is really essential for us to live as a human being. It's not just money, goods, iPhones, and computers. So I want to provide, as an organic farmer, not just safe food, but an opportunity for people to come back to nature and feel for themselves what it is like to be alive.

The Kinekuza Family taking a break.
 (via Samovar Life: photo and (great blog post on the Kinezuka tea festival))

Ayumi Kinezuka: "TPP and the dismantling of Japanese Agriculture"

Preface: The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), perhaps the world's most ambitious free trade agreement, is currently under negotiation. What began as a small regional free trade agreement has become one of the primary tools in the United States' geopolitical pivot towards the Asia-Pacific region...

This "Food First Backgrounder" outlines the agreement's assault on democracy and food sovereignty and examines the TPP's likely impacts on food and agriculture in Japan, the latest country to join negotiations.


TPP and the Dismantling of Japanese Agriculture

By Ayumi Kinezuka

According to the Buddhist concept of “shindo-fuji,” a healthy body comes from healthy soil, so one must appreciate the environment one lives in. Japan has a strong food movement, rooted in shindo-fuji, promoting local production and consumption.

However, agricultural imports have been on the rise since World War II, severely undermining Japanese food production: in 1965, Japan’s food self-sufficiency rate was 73 percent, but by 2010, it had dropped to 39 percent. Japanese food self-sufficiency—now one of the lowest among OECD countries—is often explained as merely the result of changes in dietary preferences. Often missing in this discussion, however, is the tremendous pressure the US applied on Japan to accept surpluses of wheat, soybeans and corn following WWII.

The traditional Japanese diet—rice combined with locally produced vegetables and fish—constituted one of the biggest barriers to post-war US imports. To open up a market for US food products, Japanese diets had to change to include bread, meat and dairy products. Through the US-funded “Nutrition Improvement Action” program, people were told, “Eating rice makes you stupid! Eat Bread!” School lunch menus were westernized and “American Trains” and “Kitchen Cars” crisscrossed the country to promote a western diet.

Today, Japanese people consume 9.5 percent more wheat, 152 percent more animal products and 131 percent more fat than in the 1950s. According to the Japanese Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries (MAFF), TPP would drop food self-sufficiency from 39 to 14 percent. Rice production would be hit severely. This could destroy Japanese agriculture and its rural culture.

Additionally, important land reform laws passed in the 1940s and 50s that safeguard farmers’ right to land have come under attack. Under pressure from the private sector, the government passed a revised land law in June 2009 cancelling the principle of “land to the tiller,” allowing non-farmers to own farmland and foreign capital to lease farmland. Deregulation under TPP would grant foreign investors further influence over national policies that protect farmers, farmland and rural communities.

The opposition against TPP in Japan encompasses a wide range of groups from progressive to conservative forces such as the Japan Agriculture and Fishery Organization, the Japan Medical Association and others. As much as 94 percent of prefectural assemblies and 80 percent of local city assemblies have passed resolutions against TPP. In Hokkaido, the opposition encompasses almost all groups and organizations in the prefecture, including the finance community.

Of the 13 political parties, seven are opposed to TPP and only one party is vocal about its support to TPP. Opposition transcends traditional political divisions, demonstrating that a broad political coalition against TPP is possible. To do that, we must increase international solidarity among farmers, citizens’ groups and local communities. The farmers of Japan hope to build strong alliances with groups and farmers in other TPP negotiating countries to stop corporate interests from destroying our agriculture and eroding our work for food sovereignty.

Ayumi Kinezuka is a young organic farmer in Shizuoka Prefecture. She studied psychology and sociology at UC Berkeley before returning home to carry on her family's tea farm.

She wrote this article for the Summer 2013 (Volume 19, No. 2) edition of Food First Backgrounder: "The Trans-Pacific Partnership: A Threat to Democracy and Food Sovereignty."  Food First Backgrounder is published by the Institute for Food and Development Policy, an Oakland-based think tank.

World Food Sovereignty Day • Soil and Peace Festival @Hibiya Park, Tokyo - Oct. 20, 2013

Today is the international family farmer movement Via Campesina's World Food Sovereignty Day; and this weekend, Japanese organic family farmers and their supporters will join in a celebration of the best of visionary Japanese (organic, recycling, nuclear-free, GMO-free, fair-trade, Slow Life, satoyama, Tohoku-supporting) culture.

Via the Consumers Union of Japan:

There will be a Soil and Peace Festival in Hibiya Park, Tokyo, on Sunday October 20, 2013. Starting at 10:00 hundreds of farmers and activists and artists will hold a great event until the evening.

A great opportunity to meet your favourite NGOs and learn more about organic food, anti-nuclear campaigns and the future of Japan. Look forward to lots of inspiration! Music by Kato Tokiko and many others throughout the day, starting with a taiko performance by Gocco.

Website with more info (J) here.

40,000 rally in Tokyo for a nuclear-free and war-free Japan (and World); Global Article 9 gathering in Osaka

(Via Jacinta Hin and Beautiful Energy)

More via our friends at Beautiful Energy - The Stand for a Nuclear Free World:

Good Morning world! Today is NO NUKES DAY in Tokyo, the day of the big demonstration. Many people from all over Japan coming together in protest to ask for a nuclear-free Japan.

If you're in Tokyo, JOIN, be seen, be heard, make a difference!

If you cannot join in person, be with all of us in spirit and heart.

To get you in the mood, we have the perfect song for you. Talented musician Natsu of our Beautiful Energy core group, has created a NO NUKES version of a famous pop song. Listen to her beautiful voice and soulful NO NUKES, BABY and be connected with us today!

At the end of September, nuclear-free supporters held two rallies after TEPCO asked for permission to restart TEPCO on Friday asked Japan's nuclear watchdog for permission to restart its Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant in Niigata Prefecture.

Since September 15, all of Japan's nuclear plants have been in shut-down for maintenance.

---

Also over the weekend, the Global Article Nine Campaign held 

its second international conference  supporting a (nuclear-free) world without war:  

the Article Nine World Conference in Osaka.

Is it safe for any of Fukushima's 160,000 nuclear refugees to return to home?

A Tamura resident used to harvest organic fruit from her orchard. 
Her house was decontaminated; her orchard was not. 
Authorities say it is ‘out of category’ – it does not fit  the categories  in the decontamination plan.
(Greenpeace: Fukushima's Returning Residents 2013)

Is it possible to decontaminate irradiated areas around the (still unstable) Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant and make them safely inhabitable again? 

In March 2011, a series of hydrogen explosions amid nuclear meltdowns (not acknowledged by the Japanese government until June 2011) at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant resulted in sudden evacuations of residents who lived  in communities around the plant.  

The first evacuation zones were simply concentrically drawn around the plant complex.  

March 11, March 12, and March 15, 2011 revised evacuation zones. (Image: Nature.com)

However when it was realized that radiation was not dispersing concentrically around the plant, but deviated because of winds, and gathering in hot spots (as far south as metropolitan Tokyo), the evacuation map was redrawn.  Iitate, a farming village 40 km northwest of the nuclear plant, showed  higher much higher radiation readings than some places adjacent to the plant.  The hot spots were created where snow, rain, and dust delivered radiation to the ground. 

Revised evacuation zone on April 11th, 2011. (Image: Wikipedia)

The evacuation zone, altered several times since 3/11, now includes eleven towns and extends up to 45 km (northwest) from the nuclear meltdowns. It is divided into three categories: a "no-return zone" (above 50 mSv of radiation dose per year); "no-residence zone" (above 20 mSv of radiation dose per year); and "zones being prepared for lift of evacuation order."

In the "no-residence zone," residents will be allowed to  enter the areas and return to their homes on a temporary basis, but they cannot stay overnight.  In "zones being prepared for lift of evacuation order," residents will be allowed to visit and to reopen stores or engage in farming.

In April 2012, the towns of Tamura, Kawauchi, and Minamisoma were reclassified. Tamura (10 miles west of the nuclear plant) was redesignated as being prepared for lift of evacuation order.  Kawauchi (15 miles west) was redesignated as two areas: a "No-residence zone" and a zone being prepared for lift of evacuation order.   And Minamisoma (16 miles north) was reclassified into three zones.

In July 2012, Iitate was also reclassified into three zones. Decontamination work was scheduled for houses, but not farmland.  Not surprisingly, since most of the former inhabitants were farmers,  Iitate remained a "ghost town" by December  2012.  Only a nursing home housed permanent residents (who had opted out of the April 2011 mass evacuation).

Despite the lifting of the evacuation order, running water, electricity, sewage systems and other infrastructure were not restored and hospitals and schools remain closed.  Proprietors of small businesses dependent on ruined local economies had lost their livelihoods. Except for decontamination projects, there is little employment available.  

In December 2012, Minamisoma  remained partly deserted.  Of the 70,000 residents (outside the exclusion zone) who voluntarily evacuated; one third have not returned.  Many in Minamisoma who did not voluntarily evacuate told filmmaker Ian Thomas Ash (In the Grey Zone, A2-B-C) that they could not afford to leave without economic assistance.

 In July 2013, authorities announced the preparation of resumption of utilities in Tamura, to ready for the return of residents. 

Greenpeace has questioned the feasibility of safe return, citing radiation monitoring that reveals inconsistent decontamination in Tamura: 

A recent Greenpeace survey found that decontamination programs have been effective for houses and many parts of major routes in the city.

But some lesser-used public roads, large areas of farmland and mountain areas still have high contamination levels, said Jan Vande Putte, Greenpeace radiation protection adviser.

He said the cleaned houses and roads were like “islands” and “corridors” in an otherwise polluted region.

It would be “unrealistic” to ask residents to stay off contaminated roads and farmland, he said.

“They can be exposed to high levels of radiation” if they returned home, he said...

“It requires enormous dedication to reduce radiation levels on roads, on houses and farmland,” he said.

But Vande Putte added that radiation levels around houses have been “significantly lowered” after decontamination work.

Residents should be given adequate information before deciding whether to return to their homes, he said, and government financial assistance should continue regardless of their decision on going back.

Contaminated soil in temporary storage (plastic bags) in Tamura; long-term storage hasn’t been worked out. 
17,800 tons of contaminated soil and leaves remain in plastic bags piled along streets and in fields.

(Greenpeace: "Photo essay: Tamura, Japan the terrible dilemma for residents")

Authorities also plan to reopen Katsurao, Namie, Kawamata, Tomioka, and the no-go parts of Iiate,  although the evacuation order will continue through 2016 and 2017.  Most of the 83,000 nuclear refugees from these highly irradiated towns within the 20-km exclusion zone now doubt they will ever be able or want to return.

David McNeill and Miguel Quintana explore issues related to the ambitious decontamination and repopulation plan  in "Mission Impossible. What Future Fukushima?"  (ミッション・インポッシブル　福島に未来は ) published at The Asia-Pacific Journal.

At the top of concerns: uncertainty; contradictory monitoring reports; conflicts regarding what constitutes "safe" radiation limits; and how to deal with massive collections of irradiated soil and debris:

Nobody knows for certain how dangerous the radiation is.

Radiation levels in most areas of Fukushima have dropped by around 40 percent since the disaster began, according to central government estimates, but those figures are widely disbelieved. Official monitoring posts almost invariably give lower readings than hand-held Geiger counters, the result of a deliberate strategy of misinformation, say critics.

The disagreement over real radiation levels is far from academic. Local municipalities are desperate for evacuees to return and must decide on what basis, in terms of exposure to radiation, evacuation orders will be lifted. If they unilaterally declare their areas safe, evacuees could be forced to choose between returning home and losing vital monthly compensation from Tokyo Electric Power Co. (Tepco), operator of the ruined Daiichi complex.

For the refugees, a worrying precedent has already been set in the municipality of Date, which lies outside the most contaminated areas. In December 2012, the local government lifted a “special evacuation” order imposed on 129 households because of a hotspot, arguing that radiation doses had fallen below 20 millisieverts per year (20 mSv/yr). Three months later the residents lost the $1000 a month they were receiving from Tepco for “psychological stress.”

...The Fukushima cleanup, however, faces another, perhaps insurmountable challenge: securing sites to store contaminated soil, leaves and sludge. Many landowners balk at hosting “interim” dumps – in principle for three years – until the central government builds a mid-term storage facility. Local governments throughout Japan have refused to accept the toxic waste, meaning it will probably stay in Fukushima for good. The waste is stored under blue tarpaulins across much of the prefecture, sometimes close to schools and homes.

This irradiated soil and leaf storage site is in Naraha. 

 (Photo: Issei Kato/Reuters via WSJ)