Cyanide and blast fishing meet population explosion

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Chikyu no Tomo

Ocean Voice International

Bubble Ecology: Volunteers from WWF Japan, led by Mariko Abe, eyeball corals for Reef Check '97. Photo: Nobuo Saeki / Reef Check

Bleaching disease and infestations by the coral-eating crown-of-thorns starfish (Acanthaster) have damaged Japanese reefs, as have the growing threats of tourism and sedimentation from coastal construction, agriculture, and dredging.

Okinawa's reefs in particular are highly stressed by construction and agriculture, as well as some of the most serious outbreaks of crown-of-thorns starfish seen anywhere; the marauding Acanthasters utterly wiped out Okinawa's west-coast corals between 1969 and 1977. Sedimentation has smothered corals around the rest of the island, and while local activists successfully blocked the government's 1979 plan to build an airport on landfill near reefs, sedimentation from deforested areas has since become an even greater, though less visible, threat. Runoff from land cleared for sugarcane and other crops menaces the particularly lush coral reefs in the Shiraho district of Ishigaki Island, about 300 miles southwest of the Okinawan mainland.

At the U.N. Earth Summit in June 1997, Japanese prime minister Ryutaro Hashimoto announced a wide-ranging environmental initiative to monitor acid rain, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, protect Pacific coral reefs, and transfer eco-friendly technology to developing countries to help them clean up their acts. With these steps, Hashimoto said, Japan remained committed to the 1992 Rio Earth Summit's goals, despite "severe budgetary constraints" due to economic belt-tightening after the crash of the '80s "bubble economy."