Plea to save Japanese bay
The Japanese government has just closed off one of Japan's largest inter-tidal wetlands for a major reclamation project. The following is from a plea for international assistance from the Japan Wetlands Action Network.
The fiddler crabs of Isahaya Bay wave their claws in vain, beckoning to a tide that no longer rises. They started to die just a few days after the Ministry of Agriculture closed off the bay on April 14. The mudskippers appear to be hanging on.
Japanese citizens have sent appeals both well reasoned and impassioned to the ministry in a steady stream, tying up the relevant department's fax number for hours.
"My mother is from the Ariake Sea area", writes one housewife, "and her stories of its unique life forms delighted my youth. I cannot endure the thought of Isahaya Bay being lost ... If this kind of thing keeps up, the human race will have no future."
The lead editorial of the Asahi Shimbun on April 16, entitled, "Land Reclamation for Whom?" lambasted the project, concluding "What is most pressing now is to open the seawall and save the tidal flat creatures from being exterminated. The ecology of the Ariake Sea has developed over the course of 6 million years. Who will claim responsibility for destroying it?"
Barbara Bramble of the United States' largest conservation organisation, the National Wildlife Federation, writes, "[We] request that you immediately suspend and conduct a thorough review of the Isahaya Bay Land Reclamation Project ...".
Daniel Beard, formerly of the Bureau of Land Reclamation and presently senior vice president for policy of the National Audubon Society of the US writes "strongly urg[ing] you to reconsider the Isahaya Bay project".
The role of Isahaya Bay as a vital feeding and resting stopover site for migratory shore birds (waders) which are now in the midst of their spring migration, was emphasised in a letter signed jointly by Dr Svetoslav Zabelin, chairperson of the International Socio-ecological Union, and Dr Pavel Tomkovich, chairperson of the Working Group on Waders of the Russian Federation.
Dr Peter Driscoll of the Queensland Wader Study Group of Australia wrote, "The planned reclamation of Isahaya Bay would be a severe loss of important habitat for waders and contribute to a decline in the numbers of these birds throughout the South East Asian-Australasian region".
The Ministry of Agriculture has so far proved completely immune to appeals. Arguments of morality, economics, common sense and science seem to have no effect.
The survival of our world will depend on how well reason can prevail over power. Please send a letter today: The Hon. Takao Fujimoto, Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Fax: 813 3501 5126. Please send a copy to: Maggie Suzuki, Japan Wetlands Action Network, Fax: 813 8793 36763.