Environmental protection in Japan

Hi,

If one was to say the USA are controlled by oil lobbies and the military industrial complex, you could say the equivalent in Japan would be the construction industry and more specifically the concrete industry. It's huge and it's everywhere.

Some of the most remote mountain rivers and secluded beach are concreted every year to keep the wheel in motion and the industry afloat.  Since the 3-11 Earthquake tsunami combo and the take over of the Japanese government by the LDP, Japan has been plagued by a resurgence of pork barrel public works projects and a huge budget allocated to those in the name of economic recovery.



When one considers Abenomics is the brainchild of Japan's finance minister Taro Aso, it starts to make more sense.  Taro Aso owns the biggest concrete/construction conglomerate in Japan,  Aso-Lafarge.  As soon as Aso was chosen as finance minister, stock prices of construction companies surged with the news.

Today, the spread of concrete in the country side of Japan is destroying all that makes Japan truly beautiful.  It is spreading at a faster pace than ever, almost like a terminal cancer, all the way to the furthest reaches of Japan.



To make more sense of the situation, I would like to introduce one of the most beautiful natural beach and river mouth in Japan, one that has become the target of the concrete industry.  It is located on Amami-Oshima and requires a long drive down a lush tropical valley (Katoku).  For many a visitor it evokes  "Jurassic Park" and for good reasons.



I've written a couple blog posts that can be accessed from this facebook page, with many pictures for people to see:

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A few local residents and myself have started a grass-root effort to save this breathtaking beach and river mouth, probably one of the very last remaining in Japan.  One of our efforts consists in re-planting sand binding Pandanus trees (Adan in Japanese) to mitigate the effects of man-induced sand erosion, and to help raise awareness.



In the next couple days we'll be publishing a petition that will be accessible from the Facebook Page (above link) so we'd be grateful if you could "Like" the Page and share the petition post as soon as we make it available in the next couple days. We will need a lot of outside support to put pressure on the Amami Setouchi Cho and Kagoshima's prefectural government.  A meeting  will take place this month, probably to finalise the budget and start bulldozing the last Jewel of the Ryukyu island.

In the meantime you can read one of the blog post in English or Japanese to understand what happened and what is at stake. Thank you for your help and please don't forget to Like the FB page and re-share once the petition is ready.

You may even come visit Amami-Oshima and participate in the grass-root effort to re-plant Adan trees. Showing your support firsthand is the best way to bring awareness and show how much you want this  "Lost jewel of the Ryukyu islands" to be preserved for future generations.

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Hi,

My links to the blog post and facebook page have been deleted. This should not be mistaken for shameless promotion.

The nature of the web is hyperlinks. If you can't allow that, you might as well remove my contribution to this forum because I truly don't want to use or support any business that delete crucial hyperlinks.  I'm not making a living from blogging _ I don't even put ads on my pages _ I'm only trying to reach more people for an environmental cause.