Save the Dugong, Stop the Airbase
"Two minutes of your time could save the 12 Dugongs of Okinawa forever"
Save the Dugongs in Okinawa, Stop the Air Base
Airstrip or last 12 dugongs left in Japan?
A plan to build an airstrip for US marines over a delicate reef in Okinawa is now underway. If built, the airstrip will destroy the underwater ecosystem of Oura bay, Henoko - home and feeding grounds of the last 12 dugongs left in Japan. The Environmental Assessment, set up to ensure proper evaluation of any threat to areas such as this, is deeply flawed. Most importantly, there is no option in the Assessment for the airstrip NOT to be built.
Reclaiming the fragile coral reef
The proposed plan for the airstrip includes reclaiming 160 hectares (about 70 times the area of a football field) and constructing two runways; each of them 1600 meters in length. The construction would be right in the middle of the already fragile area where the endangered dugongs feed.
Local opinions ignored
On August 7 this year, the Japanese Government presented the Okinawa Prefecture Government a document explaining how the Environmental Assessment (*1) would be carried out. This signaled the first step to start construction. However, the Okinawa Prefecture Government has not yet accepted this document, as it does not reflect local opinions.
However, one week later, the Japanese Government blatantly ignored the Prefecture and exhibited the document in selected venues, which limited the number of people who had access to read it. Moreover, as there is no access to the document outside of Okinawa, concerns and opinions from the rest of Japan and abroad were ignored.
Legally, an Environmental Assessment must ensure that the development plan reflects local opinion to reduce or avoid any negative impact on the environment. Even if the document had been displayed properly, local opinion has not properly and adequately been taken into account and the law has been flouted.
We only have a few weeks to act!
The Japanese Government has now determined that September 29th is the last date to register comments and opinions about this Environmental Assessment. After that date, full-scale construction for the air base will begin and the area will be destroyed forever.
We want to keep the dugong, not the air base!
We have received more than 30,000 messages from September 4th to 26th to save the dugong from the world.
Thank you very much.
We submitted all the messages to the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Environment on September 27th.
Press release(September 27, 2007)
Henoko diary -from the dugong sea-(Our blog in English)
- (1) Environmental Assessment
- An Environmental Assessment is a procedure that ensures that the environmental implications of decisions are taken into account before the decision is finalised. The process involves an analysis of the likely effects on the environment; recording those effects in a report; undertaking a public consultation exercise on the report; taking into account the comments and the report when making the final decision; and informing the public about the decision afterwards.
