The death of a wetland: destruction in Isahaya Bay reveals Japan's love of nature as nothing more than myth

Japan, Inc., Nov, 2002 by Michael E. Stanley

Editor's note: Japan, perhaps more than any other industrialized country, has relied for decades on public works as a way to spark the economy. For years, despite environmental sacrifices, the plan worked: Build a bridge, line the coffers of construction companies with government money, and keep the locals happy and employed. But lately, public works have been the target of criticism; moreover, they've been unable to recharge the nation's sputtering economy. As if oblivious to the public resentment toward some of its plans, the government plunges ahead with more pork-barrel projects. Is Japan being paved over to appease a government addicted to public-works spending? Are there any benefits to this spending that are being overlooked in the highly charged debates about government policy? To delve deeper into this issue, we are bringing you the first in an occasional series that captures the effects of Japan's public-works projects through the lens of a camera.

We have all heard again and again how much the Japanese culture is dominated by a love and sensitivity for the amazingly rich natural heritage of this archipelago. Perhaps that was true at some point in years past, but it is nothing less than an egregious lie here at the beginning of the 21st century. The professed love for "nature" is a worn-out, hollow cliche, the patent falseness of which is evident to anyone who has tried to search out what truly remains of Japan's wild patrimony. The modern Japanese apparently prefer their precious "nature" controlled and neatly packaged, but the results--manmade beaches, manicured golf courses and artificial amusement-park attractions--hardly fit anyone's definition of "natural."

The salient facts about the amazingly rich biota of these islands are taught to every schoolchild, but in truth the culture of modern Japan shows a single-minded willingness to sacrifice it all for gain, and this usually over a relatively short term--and often off the books. A case in point is the story of Isahaya Bay.

On the west side of Kyushu, the southwesternmost of Japan's four main islands, is a long arm of the ocean called the Ariake Sea. It is a shallow bay, rich with life. Isahaya Bay is on the Ariake's west side just above the Shimabara peninsula; the tide-lands of this bay were until recently the largest remaining marine wetland Japan and a major stopover for birds migrating between Siberia and Australasia. Moreover, as development devoured the coastline of the Ariake Sea, the importance of Isahaya Bay grew as a refuge for species unique to this special corner of the western Pacific. Two hundred and eighty two species of benthic fauna have been identified in the bay. But on April 14, 1997, a 7-kilometer dike closed off 3,550 hectares of these fecund shallows. Sixteen hundred hectares are slated to be reclaimed as agricultural land; the rest is to be a freshwater catchment reservoir.

This project was first proposed in 1952 with the aim of turning the ride-washed mudflats into rice paddies to feed a Japan still reeling from the defeat of the Pacific War. Even though that need disappeared in the following decade, entrenched bureaucratic stubbornness and under-the-table cronyism eventually won out despite strident local protests, a growing awareness of the ecological importance of the bay and a [yen] 100 billion cost overrun.

As rice yielding acreage alone was no longer a sufficient pretext, pasturage for expensive wagyu beef cattle was substituted as a pressing reason for the project. When beef imports were liberalized in the 1980s and the bottom dropped out of that market, the project was then reincarnated for the purpose of flood control. Whatever the rationale, landfill and related construction continue; completion is forecast for 2006.

In September 1996, I traveled to Isahaya to photograph the last season of mutsukake, a traditional technique of fishing used to take mudskippers (mutsugoro). These unusual fish are the northernmost representatives of their kind; their relatives prefer the warm estuarine shallows of the Indo-Pacific region, in all of Japan, they are found only in the Ariake Sea, and until 1997, the richest concentration of these odd, amphibian-like fish was found in Isahaya Bay. They area delicacy and a symbol of the area.

Hiromichi Harada, an Ariake fisherman, was my guide and subject. With him, I traveled out into the center of the tidal flats and was able to see the rich life of the hay firsthand. It was not an easy undertaking, as the gata (tidal mud) away from the shoreline is not firm enough to stand of walk on. Ariake fishermen move about on the gata using shaped planks up to about two meters in length on which they kneel and propel themselves by pushing with one leg. This technique--imitating the movement of the mudskippers--is quite common in the muddy estuaries and tidal flats of tropical Asia, but in Japan is encountered only in the Ariake. I had to do the same, with all the camera gear precariously loaded into a large wooden tub atop the plank. That narrow piece of lumber became my trusty vessel and work platform out on one of the most unusual corners of this planet that I have ever visited.