ENVIRONMENT-JAPAN: Green Lawmakers Stop Dam Building Spree

By Suvendrini Kakuchi Reprint | | Print |

Suvendrini Kakuchi - Asia Water Wire*

TOKYO, Nov 14 2006 (IPS) - Japan’s vaunted dam building culture, costing millions of dollars in public funds, is taking a beating these days with the election of environmentally-conscious governors and growing public opposition.

”There is now a growing consensus among the public about the need to protect the environment. The election of green politicians who challenge the traditional link between politicians and businessmen that has spawned ecologically destructive projects, reflects the public mood,” said Jun Hoshikawa, director of Greenpeace Japan.

At the top of the list of favourites among the conservationists is Yukiko Kada, a professor of environmental sociology, who was elected in July as the governor of Shiga prefecture, a conservative stronghold of 1.3 million people in western Japan.

Kada, a charismatic 56-year-old woman who has long worked with grassroots green groups to protect the local scenery and water, especially the famed LakeBiwa that supplies water to 14 million people in western Japan, defeated a politically strong opponent who was running for his third term.

”My ‘mottainai’ (what a waste) campaign that explained to people that it is a waste to not make use of our nature to bring activities such as tourism to the area, won support,” she told IPS in an exclusive interview this month.

Kada also campaigned to halt the expensive construction of a Shinkansen, or bullet train station, in her prefecture criticising it as a waste of tax payers’ money, though it had already been approved. It has been a boost to the work of the activists here.

Despite the landmark election, environmentalists say the stakes continue to be high. Their biggest fear is that such victories can fizzle out before being able to bring changes in a deeply entrenched system that puts material gain over everything else.

”Yes, Kada stands for protecting the environment. Still, this does not mean challenging the establishment is easy. There is the possibility of her efforts going without much reward in the end,” warned Tokiharu Okazaki, officer at Friends of the Earth, Japan.

Indeed, Japan’s much publicised fight put up by the reformist governor of Nagano prefecture Yasuo Tanaka who stopped public works projects when he was elected in 2000, ended when he lost to a conservative in August this year.

Tanaka’s successor, supported by the Liberal Democratic Party, is a bureaucrat. He accused Tanaka of focusing too much on fiscal reforms and not implementing public works.

But Aileen Smith, who runs the Kyoto-based ‘Green Action’, welcomes Kada’s election as a symbol of the efforts of activists to bring environmental issues to the public. Kyoto borders Shiga.

”Despite the high interest among ordinary people to protect the environment, the challenge is giving them the necessary information so they can make informed choices,” said Smith whose group works to raise awareness about dangers posed to civilians from Japan’s nuclear waste.

”With the election of Kada, who is well-known as an environmental activist, our work has been elevated to an important platform and the public has been given an opportunity to learn more,” she added.

Indeed, Kada’s ‘mottainai’ campaign, based on her message that the Japanese must return to their traditional lifestyle that respected nature and frowned upon wasteful lifestyle, has turned into a popular slogan in the area.

”I have great hopes for change under Kada and hope she will stop environmentally destructive companies from operating,” said Shigeru Matsumi, 68, who is a director of the volunteer group, Imadu Society to Protect the Environment, in Imadu, a small city of 13,000 people close of Lake Biwa.

Matsumi recalls that as a child he would wash himself in the lake, the largest in Japan, marvelling at the clear water and playing with the fish that swarmed around his ankles.

”The lake has lost all its indigenous fish because of pollution. I am working to clean the water with the support of school children,” Matsumi told IPS. The group releases farmed Japanese ‘killi’ fish – a species categorised as ‘endangered ll’ in the environment ministry – into Lake Biwa.

Japan’s post-war economic growth that turned the lake into a multipurpose source -supplying water for domestic use as well as for factories, road development and other public works that mushroomed in the area – resulted in waste being dumped into the lake causing pollution.

Experts say Shiga prefecture began to increase spending on expensive technology such as sewage plants to make water flowing into LakeBiwa clean, rather than change lifestyles as a solution.

Kada worked to change this by starting new projects such as growing reef beds in ponds that work as filters for fertilisers used by local farmers.

”I believe in long-term solutions which are supported by the people because while they need economic growth they also want to protect LakeBiwa for the sake of their children,” Kada said.

(*The Asia Water Wire, coordinated by IPS Asia-Pacific, is a series of features around water and development in the region.)