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Japan Pollution
As Japan changed from an agricultural society to an
urbanized
industrial power, much of its natural beauty was destroyed
and
defaced by overcrowding and industrial development.
However, as the
world's leading importer of both exhaustible and renewable
natural
resources and the second largest consumer of fossil fuels,
Japan
came to realize that it had a major international
responsibility to
conserve and protect the environment. By 1990 Japan had
some of the
world's strictest environmental protection regulations.
These regulations were the consequence of a number of
wellpublicized environmental disasters. Cadmium poisoning from
industrial waste in Toyama Prefecture was discovered to be
the
cause of the extremely painful itai-itai
disease
(itai-itai means ouch-ouch), which causes
severe pain
in the back and joints, contributes to brittle bones that
fracture
easily, and brings about degeneration of the kidneys.
Recovery of
cadmium effluent halted the spread of the disease, and no
new cases
have been recorded since 1946. In the 1960s, hundreds of
inhabitants of Minamata City in Kumamoto Prefecture
contracted
"Minamata disease," a degeneration of the central nervous
system
caused by eating mercury-poisoned seafood from Minamata
Bay (nearly
1,300 cases of Minamata disease had been diagnosed by
1979). In
Yokkaichi, a port in Mie Prefecture, air pollution caused
by sulfur
dioxide and nitrogen dioxide emissions led to a rapid
increase in
the number of people suffering from asthma and bronchitis.
In urban
areas, photochemical smog from automotive and industrial
exhaust
fumes also contributed to the rise in respiratory
problems. In the
early 1970s, chronic arsenic poisoning attributed to dust
from
local arsenic mines (since shut down) was experienced in
Shimane
and Miyazaki prefectures. The incidence of
polychlorobiphenyl (PCB)
poisoning, caused by polluted cooking oil and food,
particularly
seafood, was also problematic.
Grass-roots pressure groups were formed in the 1960s
and 1970s
as a response to increasing environmental problems. These
groups
were independent of formal political parties and focused
on single,
usually local, environmental issues. Such citizens'
movements were
reminiscent of earlier citizen protests in the 1890s. As a
result
of this pressure, Japan began in the early 1970s to combat
pollution on an official governmental level, with the
establishment
of the Environmental Agency. Although the agency lacked
strong
public influence and political power, it established
effective
regulations to curb pollution from photochemical smog
through
strict automotive emissions standards. It also worked to
reduce
noise from trains and airplanes, to remove mining,
forestry, and
tourist debris left on mountainsides and in national
forests, and
to monitor noise and air pollutant levels in major cities.
Groups also pressured the government and industry for a
system
of compensation for pollution victims. A series of
lawsuits in the
early 1970s established that corporations were responsible
for
damage cause by their products or activities. The
Pollution Health
Damage Compensation Law of 1973 provides industry funds
for
victims. Compensation, however, was slow, and awards were
small,
but the establishment of a government fund helped industry
diffuse
public outrage. In 1984 it was reported that Japan had
more than
85,000 recognized victims of environmental pollution, with
an
estimated rate of increase of 6 percent a year. The
regulations
aimed at business were not enough to solve Japan's
environmental
problems, according to the Environment Agency's 1989
White Paper
on the Environment, although public awareness and
interest had
grown and a number of civic and public interest groups had
been
established to combat pollution. Fewer public interest
groups were
engaged in the environmental debate than in antinuclear
issues, and
the peak of public interest in the environment occurred in
the
1970s and early 1980s.
Japan had still not addressed worldwide environmental
issues
adequately. Japanese whaling continued in the early 1990s
to be the
object of international protest, and Japanese corporate
involvement
in the deforestation of Southeast Asia created concern
among
domestic and international groups.
The late 1980s saw the beginnings of change. In a 1984
public
opinion poll conducted by the government, Japanese
citizens had
indicated less concern for environmental problems than
their
European counterparts. In the same year, the Environmental
Agency
had issued its first white paper calling for greater
participation
by Japan's public and private sectors in protecting the
global
environment. That challenge was repeated in the 1989
study. When
citizens were asked in 1989 if they thought environmental
problems
had improved compared with the past, nearly 41 percent
thought
things had improved, 31 percent thought that they had
stayed the
same, and nearly 21 percent thought that they had
worsened. Some 75
percent of those surveyed expressed concern about
endangered
species, shrinkage of rain forests, expansion of deserts,
destruction of the ozone layer, acid rain, and increased
water and
air pollution in developing countries. Most believed that
Japan,
alone or in cooperation with other industrialized
countries, had
the responsibility to solve environmental problems.
Although
environmental public interest groups were not as numerous
or active
as they had been in the 1970s, the increased awareness of
global
environmental issues is likely to result in increased
grass-roots
activism.
Since the 1960s, Japan has made slow but significant
progress
in combating environmental problems. Efforts made in the
late 1980s
created a base of technology and concern that was expected
to help
the Japanese face the environmental issues of the 1990s.
Data as of January 1994
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