Kurashi: No "cheap" nuclear power for Tokyo, regardless of who wins governorship

Via Martin Frid at Kurashi, who explains why Tokyo won't be supplied with s "cheap" nuclear power, regardless of who wins the Tokyo governorship:

But the reality is that for Tokyo citizens, there is very little possibility of nuclear power plants to provide energy for the city's bright lights. Consumers, who vote, should know that only a handful of nuclear power plants that may provide energy to the metropolis are even candidates for restarts.

A reminder: Currently, none of Japan's 48 nuclear power plants are online. Japan has completely gone off the nuclear "heroin" drug.

But 16 are applying for restarts as of February 1, 2014.

Of those, only two would be in any position to provide Tokyo with electricity. Those are reactors 6 and 7 in Kashiwasaki Kariwa in far away Niigata prefecture. Both were severely shaken by the earthquake back in 2007, so we know they are not yet confirmed to be safe as such. No other reactors that may provide Tokyo voters with energy are about to be restarted.

I went on a tour back in 2008 at the world's largest nuclear plant in Kashiwazaki Kariwa in Niigata prefecture, western Japan. It has seven nuclear reactors that are currently all undergoing repairs after the massive earthquake in July, 2007. The PR from Tepco, the electricity company that runs the plant, was confusing at first, (BBC) and it is clear that damage was more severe than initially reported...

As for the rest, such as the controversial Hamaoka reactor southwest of Tokyo, they have recently built a huge 22 meter high wall hoping that will stop a potential tsunami. And that would not be providing Tokyo residents with juice for their heated toilets, air conditioners, rechargeable gadgets, or else. And I know there are any number of factory owners and businesses that hope for cheap electricity, but it just is not going to happen.

The Tokyo election on February 9 is not about nuclear power, because the capital of Japan no longer has any number of nuclear plants to provide it with "cheap" electricity.

Greens Japan back Kenji Utsunomiya as Tokyo gubernatorial candidate: "We won't forget the people of Okinawa and Fukushima."

(Via Kenji Utsunomiya on FB) 

At the 2.2 Hachiko Square, Shibuya, Tokyo campaign rally, Tokyo gubernatorial candidate Kenji Utsunomiya praised Okinawan citizen democracy and acknowledged the suffering of  people in Japan's sacrifice zones. Okinawa, a prefecture the size of Rhode Island, hosts over 30 military bases; and 290,000 people from Tohoku, including 160,000 nuclear refugees, remain in temporary housing limbo, three years after 3/11: 

The people of Okinawa did not sell their soul for money...We won't forget the people of Okinawa and Fukushima.

Backed by the Greens, Utsunomiya came in a far second in the last Tokyo gubernatorial election. His campaign is considered a long shot by many; in 2012 he received around 15% (968,960) of the vote compared to LDP candidate Naoki Inose's 65% (4,338,936). However, analysts may be underestimating the momentum for democracy, social justice, and peace in Japan. Moreover, it's uplifting to see so many people in Tokyo express solidarity with the people of Okinawa and Fukushima, and who look at Okinawa as a source of inspiration for their own movement for participatory democracy.

Inose resigned in December, after one year of office, because of allegations of corruption. Utsnomiya's major opponents are LDP candidate Yoichi Masuzoe (an ally of current PM Abe), former PM Morihiro Hosokawa (campaigning with former PM Koizumi),  and General Toshio Tamogami. Similarly to Utsunomiya, Hosokawa  favors a nuclear-free stance and an environmentally-friendly Olympics; however the two candidates diverge on policy details, as well as overall vision. The other two are pro-nuclear and favor lavish spending on the Olympics.

Kenji Utsunomiya, a former president of the Japan Federation of Bar Associations, has dedicated his career to addressing structural poverty and social justice issues (including multicultural inclusion). He specialized in poverty-related law cases, including victims of predatory lending overcome the burden of multiple loans.  He served as honorary mayor of a makeshift village for homeless workers in Tokyo's Hibiya Park in 2008. He speaks to the plight of many, especially youth, who suffer from irregular employment, deepening structural poverty, and resulting increased homelessness in Japan.

Since the collapse of Japan's Bubble Economy in 1991 and, again, since the 2008 US housing bubble crash that affected the international economy, the postwar Japanese middle class society and Peace Constitution have come under assault.  The nation's zero interest rate policy (ZIRP) has long decimated any expectation of savings income for Japanese retirees, who have had to use up their shrinking principal for living costs. The current administration's quantitative easing monetary policy maintains a zero interest rate, thus creating easy money. This benefits speculative borrowers, fuels new bubbles, and hurts the ordinary Japanese person.

51% of Japanese single-parent households are living in poverty. Japan’s welfare system only assists 18 percent of people under the poverty line. Last year, the administration raised the consumption tax to 8%.  Moreover, PM Abe has cut welfare benefits and increased military spending last summer, reported Tomohiro Osaki in "Abe set to squeeze the poor."

Surrounded by mother and children supporters at a rally in Ginza on Feb. 4.

Kenji Utsunomiya: "Childcare, work, education are serious issues."  

(Photo: Kenji Utsunomiya on FB) 

In a talk given at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan (FCCJ) in Tokyo, the charismatic candidate detailed Tokyo's many socio-economic problems and how he would solve them:

• 43,000 elderly individuals  in Tokyo are waiting to get into a care facility.

• Day care: The official number of children on a waiting list is 8,000 children, but the actual number is probably actually closer to 20,000.

• Under former Governor Ishihara, no new public housing was constructed. Meanwhile, 750,000 housing units are empty in Tokyo. Would introduce a program for Tokyo to pay rental fees of empty units and provide them to residents as public housing.

• Initiate a subsidy program for the working poor. Problem of employment a serious problem for young people. Sad truth young people in Japan no longer to have much hope. They are treated as temporary workers. Exploitative "black companies" that use up young workers. Outlaw them in Tokyo, to prevent people from dying from overwork.

• Tokyo disaster prevention program. Subsidies to reinforce buildings and fireproof wooden homes. Start a movement from Tokyo throughout the nation to abolish nuclear power.

• Support the movement for a nuclear-free Japan from Tokyo to other regions. Work to help the evacuees and victims still living in Fukushima.      

• Address bullying in schools; work to create vibrant, hopeful school cultures.

• Stop the de facto revision of Article 9 by halting efforts to engage Japan in "collective defense."  Would work to defend the Japanese Constitution and to dispatch messages of peace to Asian neighbors.

• Simple and environmentally-friendly Olympics and Paralympics.    

Utsunomiya responded to a question about the South China Sea tensions by saying that  the era of using war to resolve territorial conflicts is over. He added that diplomacy is a better way to address international disputes, and explained that Tokyo and other autonomous local governments are able to convey messages of peace to Asian neighbors, even if the national government is unable to do. He suggested that peace-based messages would ensure an amicable atmosphere which would foster the success of the Olympics.

Utsunomiya emphasized that the international sporting event, is, after all, a festival and celebration of peace and friendship.  He compared prewar aggression to increasing geopolitical tensions of recent years: Tokyo was supposed to host the 1940 Olympics, however this was not realized because the war between Japan and China began to escalate around that time. Also, in 1939, World War Two began in Europe. 

When asked why he had not considered merging his campaign with Morihiro Hosokawa (they share a Nuclear-Free stance),  Utsunomiya replied that the former PM's association with Junichiro Koizumi, another former PM (2001-2006), was problematic. During his administration, Koizumi spearheaded neoliberal deregulation that deepened structural poverty in Japan. The insecurity of temporary workers, including loss of homes, may be traced directly to Koizumi's policies. Moreover, their platforms diverge on issues of  poverty, welfare, education, the Japanese Constitution, collective self-defense, state secrets, and the TPP.

In a Jan. 10 article at JT, Reiji Yoshida provides background on the Tokyo election:

Tokyo has as many as 10 million voters... Experts... said most Tokyo residents are unaffiliated swing voters without loyalty to any of the established parties...Their voting behavior is often affected by hot-button issues of the day or candidates who draw intense media coverage, rather than pork-barrel public works spending or organized election machines, the usual weapons for LDP candidates in local elections...

According to the Green Pages, a publication by the US Green Party, the Green Party (Midori no Tou) was formed in 2012 from a former party, Midori no Mirai (Green Future), to reflect Japanese nuclear-free,  fossil-free, environmental, pro-democracy movements. They support renewable energy, oppose the export of nuclear power technology, and the Trans-Pacific Partner­ship (TPP). Greens Japan calls for an economy centered on local production and consumption, improved social security programs through fair sharing of tax burdens, and revitalization of participatory democratic processes.

-JD

Okinawan Delegation goes to Washington; Western & Okinawan scholars issue separate statements with same request: Abandon plan for new military base in Henoko

 Left: Mr. Seiryou Arakaki, Chairman of the Okinawa Prefectural Assembly's special committee on U.S. bases. Center: Ms. Keiko Itokazu, Upper House member of Japanese Parliament. Right: Mr. Caesar Uehara, Naha City Council.

(Photo courtesy of Ms. Keiko Itokazu)

This week, three Okinawan political leaders who comprised the 2014 "No Henoko Base delegation," visited Washington, D.C. to meet with US Congressional members, think tanks, and scholars to convey the results of Mayor Susumu Inamine's January 19, 2014 reelection in Nago and  Okinawan concerns. They told Americans that Mayor Inamine was reelected because of his promise to protect Henoko, an environmentally sensitive coastal area in central Okinawa, under threat by an ecologically destruction military base plan. 

The base plan, pushed by a few military construction companies in Okinawa with close ties to the LDP, never had the support of the Okinawan people, who have viewed it as an ecologically destructive boondoggle.  The current Okinawa governor, Hirokazu Nakaima won reelection in 2010 because of his campaign promise to oppose the plan.  However in late December, Governor Nakaima capitulated to the current Japanese (LDP-run) administration and signed an approval for military landfill. All the while, he made it clear that he did so only under political duress, reiterating his belief that it was not politically viable.

Governor Nakaima's surprise hairpin switch galvanized the formation of an informal network of scholars, writers,  and peace activists who quickly came together to issue a statement (now a petition) asking the Japanese and US governments to honor the popular will of the Okinawan people: abandon the Henoko plan and close Futenma, a flight training base dangerously located in the middle of Ginowan City in central Okinawa.

Johan Galtung (Photo:Transcend.org)

Signatories include Nobel Peace Laureate Mairead Maguire, Peace and Conflict Studies founder Johan Galtung, anti-nuclear activists Angie Zelter and Alice Slater, Pulitzer Prize winning historians Herbert Bix and John Dower, scholars Mark Selden, Gavan McCormack, Satoko Norimatsu, Laura Hein, Peter Kuznick, and Norma Field, filmmakers Oliver Stone and John Junkerman, environmentalist David Suzuki, novelists Joy Kogawa and Kyo Maclear, Daniel Ellsberg, and Sheila Johnson, widow of Chalmers Johnson:

Not unlike the 20th century U.S. Civil Rights struggle, Okinawans have non-violently pressed for the end to their military colonization. They tried to stop live-fire military drills that threatened their lives by entering the exercise zone in protest; they formed human chains around military bases to express their opposition; and about a hundred thousand people, one tenth of the population have turned out periodically for massive demonstrations.

Octogenarians initiated the campaign to prevent the construction of the Henoko base with a sit-in that has been continuing for years. The prefectural assembly passed resolutions to oppose the Henoko base plan. In January 2013, leaders of all the 41 municipalities of Okinawa signed the petition to the government to remove the newly deployed MV-22 Osprey from Futenma base and to give up the plan to build a replacement base in Okinawa.

We support the people of Okinawa in their non-violent struggle for peace, dignity, human rights and protection of the environment.

On Thursday, Okinawan scholars and journalists issued their own statement, with the same request: "Respect the voice of the people of Okinawa." The Ryukyu Shimpo reports:

This statement was made in response to Susumu Inamine’s re-election as mayor of Nago. The signers stressed that the election result was an expression of dissent towards the new base not only by the citizens of Nago, but also by the Okinawan people...

Seigen Miyazato, a political scientist and adviser of the Okinawa International Issues Study Group, and other signers issued the statement at a news conference held on January 27. The signers included scholars who specialize in constitutional law and political science, and journalists...

One year ago the mayors of all 41 municipalities visited Prime Minister Abe to submit the petition to cancel the relocation plan within the prefecture. Kunitoshi Sakurai, a professor at Okinawa University, stressed, “We must rebuild an ‘All-Okinawa’ system. We have the common ground that we will decide the future of the region for ourselves.” Masaaki Gabe, a professor at the University of the Ryukyus, Tateki Yafuso, a former professor of the University of the Ryukyus and Masako Yafuso, a board member of the Okinawa Human Rights Association, attended the news conference.

Left to Right: Seiryou Arakaki, Chairman of the Okinawa Prefectural Assembly's special committee on U.S. bases; Ms. Keiko Itokazu; Peter Kuznick, American University professor; Caesar Uehara, Naha City Council; 

 and John Feffer, co-director of "Foreign Policy in Focus", a publication by the Institute for Policy Studies. 

(Photo courtesy of Ms. Keiko Itokazu)

In "The Front Line in the Struggle for Democracy in Japan – Nago City, Okinawa," published on Jan. 27 at The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, Gavan McCormack outlines and explains the significance of this latest episode of the sixteen-year struggle of Okinawans to close Futenma  and to halt the proposed construction of the air training base's ostensible "replacement" at Henoko.  

The East Asia scholar (co-author of Resistant Islands: Okinawa Confronts Japan and the United States) frames the conflict as construction pork barrel politics and militarism versus vibrant citizen democracy and nonviolence in Okinawa.  McCormack (an original signatory) notes that the international letter on behalf of the movement uplifted Mayor Inamine, Okinawan political leaders and activists during the Nago campaign:

Many, including Mayor Inamine, spoke of taking heart from the sense that the Okinawan cause, Nago’s cause, was just and internationally supported. Solidarity is something that Okinawans have long looked for and deserved - by the justice of their struggle, their persistence over so many years, and the resolutely non-violent, citizen-centred democratic frame of their movement. 

Okinawan daily Ryukyu Shimpo's coverage here, "Opposition leader Itokazu visits the U.S. to request cancellation of Henoko landfill."

Cherry blossoms in full bloom in Nago, Okinawa

Cherry blossoms in full bloom Nago, Okinawa, 

via Okinawa Outreach on FB. (Photo: Sueko Yamauchi)

Alexis Dudden: Will the U.S. practice the democratic values it preaches in Okinawa?

Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior, and 28 boats with local (mostly elder) activists from the "Save Life Society" stage a flotilla, with a large 'dugong' on top of Henoko reef where a proposed American military base

 would be built across important dugong habitat. With the planned construction of the airbase, dugongs, 

which are one of Japan's cultural icons and protected animals, are about to lose their habitat. 

(Photo: Greenpeace calls for dugong rescue in Japan: Protest against American airbase intensifies, 2005)

Great article—"Democratic Values and US Bases in Okinawa Will the U.S. practice the democratic values it preaches in Okinawa?"—at The Diplomat by historian Alexis Dudden (one of the signatories of a statement by North American authors, scholars, filmmakers, in support of democracy and peace for Okinawa) overviews the history of local community opposition to the proposed destruction of the last habitat of the critically endangered Okinawa dugong and repeats a question Okinawans have been asking for a long time:

...Villagers who had never considered themselves politically active joined the cause.

The numbers remain small but consistently larger than the government-backed construction companies have anticipated; at one point, fearing confrontation, Japanese surveyors received special permission from the U.S. military command and launched their boats from nearby Camp Schwab instead of the public dock at Henoko. Protesters responded with a peaceful flotilla strategy: an “in water” sit-in made up of kayaks and other small craft. The struggle intensified with government-backed construction firms attempting to bore holes through the coral reefs to erect scaffolding on the one hand, while protesters tried everything in their power to stop them. In December 2004, several construction workers became reckless with their heavy equipment; a few members of the “Society for the Protection of Life” wound up in the hospital. News of their injuries outraged fishermen throughout Okinawa. In solidarity, they sailed to Oura Bay, expanding the resistance from protecting life in Henoko to protecting life in all of Okinawa.

John Einarsen: Waking up to snow in Kyoto...

John Einarsen, Kyoto Journal founding editor:

Waking up to snow in Kyoto is one of the best things in life. It is an event, an occasion when the world is totally transformed...

Here is one of my favorite Kyoto spots in the snow—Nanzenji

Still Praying for Tohoku: Uncanny Terrain follows mayoral candidacy of organic farmer in Fukushima

"Uncanny Terrain"  2012-2013 interview footage with Akira Asami, organic farmer in Fukushima

Via filmmakers Junko Kajino and Ed M. Koziarski, at work on Uncanny Terrain, a documentary exploring the lives of organic farmers in Fukushima in the aftermath of 3/11:

Akihiro Asami left his life as a city salaryman to raise his family on a self-sustaining organic farm in the mountains of Kitakata, on the western outskirts of Fukushima prefecture.

When the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant melted down in 2011, Akihiro's wife Harumi evacuated with their two young daughters. Akihiro stayed behind to continue farming. In the face of public fears of Fukushima food, some of Akihiro's neighbors were unable to keep their farms going and moved away. Akihiro found his crops showed no detectible contamination from the fallout. He worked to hold his community together.

In 2012, Harumi and the girls moved back to Kitakata, accepting the risk of exposure over the pain and disruption of separation and displacement.

Akihiro Asami on the campaign trail in the snow

In December, Akihiro announced his campaign for mayor of Kitakata on a platform of local economies and natural agriculture as an alternative to the unsustainable systems that spawned the nuclear disaster.

Next week we return to Fukushima to capture Akihiro's dark horse campaign, a hopeful protest by one Fukushima farmer for a better way to live.

Please help us to continue our journey, complete the film, and share the stories of Akihiro and his fellow Fukushima farmers with the world. We gratefully accept tax-deductible donations at Uncanny Terrain.

See more photos of Akihiro Asami and follow the election at Uncanny Terrain on Facebook.

To the Japanese Fisherman of Taji from Yoko Ono

TO THE JAPANESE FISHERMAN OF TAIJI
FROM YOKO ONO, 20 JANUARY 2014.

Dear Japanese Fishermen of Taiji,

I understand how you must feel about the one-sided-ness of the West to be angry at your traditional capture and slaughter of Dolphins. But that tradition was made only when the world, and Japanese Fishermen did not know what it meant to do harm to the Dolphins. I'm sure you have heard so many speeches in which all of these things have been discussed. So I will not bore you with it.

But I think you should think of this situation from the point-of-view of the big picture. Japan has gone through such hard times lately. And we need the sympathy and help of the rest of the world. It will give an excuse for big countries and their children in China, India and Russia to speak ill of Japan when we should be communicating our strong love for peace, not violence.

I am sure that it is not easy, but please consider the safety of the future of Japan, surrounded by many powerful countries which are always looking for the chance to weaken the power of our country. The future of Japan and its safety depends on many situations, but what you do with Dolphins now can create a very bad relationship with the whole world.

The way you are insisting on a big celebration of killing so many Dolphins and kidnapping some of them to sell to the zoos and restaurants at this very politically sensitive time, will make the children of the world hate the Japanese.

For many, many years and decades we have worked hard to receive true understanding of the Japanese from the world. And, because of our effort, Japan is now respected as a country of good power and ingenuity. This did not happen without our efforts of many decades.

But what we enjoy now, can be destroyed literally in one day. I beg of you to consider our precarious situation after the nuclear disaster (which could very well effect the rest of the world, as well).

Please use political tact and cancel the festival which will be considered by the rest of the world as a sign of Japanese arrogance, ignorance, and love for an act of violence.

Thank you.

Yoko Ono
20 January 2014

---

Postscript: Dolphin hunting and selling dolphins to aquariums around the world are not Japanese traditions. The large-scale hunts at Taiji only began in 1969.  Smaller scale kills are an"invented tradition" dating back to the Meiji (1868-1912) period, when the Japanese government sought to replace the Japanese archipelago's diverse regional and local cultures with a standardized state-directed national culture. Large-scale whale hunts also began during the postwar period, introduced to Japan by the US Occupation.  Traditional Japanese cuisine is characterized by no or sparing use of meat of mammals. 

Background on Taiji dolphin kills as an"invented tradition" at this 2009 post "Taiji (killing dolphins is not a Japanese tradition) and Beyond: Saving Dolphins and Whales throughout our Planet." Background on the even more recent large-scale kills at "Taiji Dolphin Drives Started in 1969, and Are Not a Part of Japanese Tradition" by Candice Calloway Whiting (published at Seattlepi.com).

Related post: "Blackfish explores the capture and treatment of killer whales in marine entertainment parks; (Japan: 4 captive Orcas); ocean sanctuaries as a way forward...," TTT, Oct. 26, 2013)

Moral Arc of the Universe Bends Towards Justice: Mayor Susumu Inamine, defender of Henoko, wins reelection in Nago

(Photo: Shingetsu News Agency)

Shingetsu News Agency President Michael Penn, who covered the campaign and election in Nago:

It's victory for democracy, popular sovereignty, citizen's movement against the bribes and intimidation from Tokyo.

Agree with Penn's POV.  See the reelection not as win against Tokyo per se, but, instead, as a victory for Okinawan and local determination to use established democratic procedures to protect the traditional community and beautiful natural environment of Henoko, a fishing village situated in an exquisite coastal area.

Penn's photo of the moment of the announcement of Mayor Inamine's reelection (after sixteen years of struggle in Nago to save Henoko, and especially after the shock of Governor Nakaima's abrupt late December hairpin switch from his 2010 campaign promise to protect Henoko) brings to mind this quote by Dr. Martin Luther King, as Americans enjoy the peace and justice activist's birthday holiday weekend in the US:

"Now it isn't easy to stand up for truth and for justice...I haven't lost faith, because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."

Mayor Inamine vowed to use his local authority to block the military landfill, proclaiming that his victory was an unofficial referendum on Henoko:

This election was easy to understand. It was about one issue, the Henoko issue...

Most of the politicians in Washington and Tokyo who have made deals concerning Henoko (and journalists writing about Henoko) have never visited Okinawa and this biodiverse coastal area, and, therefore, have no understanding of the precious ecosystem and cultural heritage at stake. It's much more than a "less densely populated area in the north of the island."

Biologists once called Okinawa the “Galápagos of the East” for its rich biodiversity. Although the herds of thousands of dugongs that once grazed on seagrass on Okinawa's coasts are gone, around fifty of the critically endangered sea mammals (cousins to the manatee) still swim with similarly endangered sea turtles in the coastal waters of Henoko. Together with rare birds, fish, crustaceans, insects (classified as rank 1, warranting the highest level of protection by the Okinawa Prefectural Government), the Henoko coast is still a prime habitat of the unique biodiversity of Okinawa. A colony of critically endangered blue coral was discovered in 2007. A World Wildlife Fund study found 36 new species of crabs and shrimps in 2009.  And Tokyo marine science researchers found a “rain-forest”-like variety of 182 different species of sea grasses and marine plants, four of which were probably new species, in Oura Bay in 2010.

In December 2013, Japan moved to designate Yanbaru, a subtropical rainforest (which includes the proposed military landfill site), a natural World Heritage site:

Environmental NGOs are concerned that the reclamation [landfill] and its concomitant introduction of invasive alien species like the Argentine ant would lead to the destruction of the vulnerable island ecosystem.

[The International Union for Conservation of Nature] IUCN has adopted three Recommendations/Resolution requesting the two governments [US and Japan] to review the construction plan.

The Okinawa dugong, a natural monument, is beloved in the mainland as well as Okinawa. Dozens of mainland Japanese environmental NGOs representing hundreds of thousands of Japanese people have supported their Okinawan counterparts and the elder residents of Henoko who have kept watch at a 24/7 sit-in Henoko since this struggle began in 1996.

On January 9, a plaintiffs group (and legal team of 126 people) announced they initiated a lawsuit seeking the cancellation of Nakaima's approval of the Henoko landfill:

Article 4 of the Public Water Body Reclamation Act requires that the landfill work properly and reasonably use national land. The act also requires the work to be environmentally friendly. The landfill approval by the governor does not meet the requirements of the act.

The plaintiffs and legal team are filing a suit against the Okinawa Prefectural Government. They seek cancellation of the approval. At the same time of the filing the action, they seek the stay of execution of the approval.

Kunitoshi Sakurai, a member of the Okinawan Environmental Network, and a professor and former president of Okinawa University, detailed the environmental protection problems in "Japan’s Illegal Environmental Impact Assessment of the Henoko Base," noting that Japanese backroom environmental assessment procedures and laws do not come close to the standards of other developed countries. The founding chairman of the Japan Society for Impact Assessment, Nagoya University professor emeritus Shimazu Yasuo described the Henoko EIA as the "worst in Japanese history."

Even a former Minister of Defense, Satoshi Morimoto, criticized what he described as the "sloppiness" of the Environmental Impact study and the concealment of “'inconvenient facts' of the appearance of the dugong...He asserted, "the Yambaru forest and rivers, whose biodiversity is recognized under both national and prefectural plans, cannot be protected under the planned relocation."

Additionally Earthjustice, a US environmental law firm,  the Japan Environmental Lawyers Federation (JELF) and  Okinawan environmental NGOS will file a new Dugong lawsuit in the US, at the same federal court in San Francisco (in which they filed the first Dugong Lawsuit in 2003):

The lawsuit aims to make the U.S. government stop the Japanese government from entering the area for the reclamation work. The National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) of the United States requires its government to protect cultural heritage around the world. If the government’s actions could affect cultural assets in other countries it must take that impact into account...

The plaintiffs, including the Okinawa dugong and three Japanese citizens, as well as six Japanese and American environmental associations have brought another action against Secretary of Defense and the United States Department of Defense for violations of the National Historic Preservation Act. They allege that the defendants approved plans for construction of the Futenma replacement facility without taking into account the effect of the construction of the military facility on the Okinawa dugong, which is a marine mammal of cultural and historical significance to the Japanese people...

The plaintiffs are same environmental groups and individuals who filed the Okinawa dugong lawsuit in 2003, which they effectively won. In the interlocutory decision, the judge decided that the dugong is subject to the National Historic Preservation Act, and that the government not evaluating the impact on the dugong was a violation of the law.

Kagohashi said, “We considered protective measures for the dugong in the previous case, but this new lawsuit aims to block the construction involved in the landfill. The American Environmental Law is very strict when it comes to the destruction of the natural environment. Our chances of victory are better in the United States than in Japan.”

The first Okinawa Dugong Lawsuit was filed in 2003. The same federal district court determined in the interlocutory decision of Jan. 2008 that the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) applied to the Okinawa dugong as a protected species.

The new lawsuit will not only take protective measures for the dugong as the original lawsuit did; it will additionally more fully address the issue of military landfill construction. U.S. environmental laws are more comprehensive and impartially administered than Japanese environmental laws. According to legal experts, the issue of whether or not a ban on the construction is in the interests of the general public will be a central issue.

In 1966, Ryukyus postal stamp commemorates the dugong's designation as a natural monument. 

(Image: Save the Dugong Campaign Center) 

"Who hopes for closing the sea of HENOKO?"

"Who hopes for closing the sea of HENOKO？20140113"

(Courtesy of Yoshio Akamine, StudioＯ Akamine Zoukeishitsu, Naha, Okinawa)