Subject: Doing Wrong by Japan's Dugong?
Date sent: Fri, 19 May 2000 14:09:47 -0400
LOS ANGELES TIMES 19-5-00
http://www.latimes.com/news/science/environ/20000519/t000047362.html
Doing Wrong by Japan's Dugong?
A timid marine mammal could be eliminated from the waters off Okinawa if a deal with the U.S. military goes through.
By SONNI EFRON, Times Staff Writer
TOKYO--Save the dugongs, cry Japanese environmentalists.
They warn that plans to relocate a U.S. military air base in Okinawa could wipe out Japan's last remaining population of the timid, endangered marine mammal that's a relative of the Florida manatee.
As part of an effort to reduce the annoyance to Okinawans of hosting about 27,000 U.S. troops, the United States in 1996 agreed to return the Futenma air base to Japan as soon as an alternative site is provided. After a tense selection process, Japan announced in November that local authorities had chosen Henoko, a sparsely populated area on the northeast side of the main Okinawa island, as the site for a new heliport.
But environmentalists and scientists say that Henoko lies smack in the middle of the last bit of habitat in Japan for the dugong. They say the slow-swimming, easily spooked creature is unlikely to survive the onslaught of human and boat traffic, construction, pollution and helicopter noise.
Dugongs are ancient animals that are found from East Africa to India, Malaysia, the northern coast of Australia and many South Pacific islands. They live only in warm oceans, and Okinawa marks their northernmost range.
Fossil records indicate that dugongs were once plentiful in the waters around Japan, and before World War II, hunters dynamited whole herds of them for their meat, said Toshio Kasuya, a marine mammal biologist at Mie University. Now they drown in fishing nets as their food supply dwindles.
Worldwide, the dugong population is estimated at perhaps 100,000, with 80,000 of them in Australia.
But scientists fear that the Japanese dugong may soon become extinct, because its habitat has been reduced to just 32 square miles north and south of Henoko. Some estimate that the local population may be less than 50 in the waters around Okinawa, although there has been little research on the species.
"In a global sense, it's probably not disastrous" to build a heliport in Henoko, said Helene Marsh, an environmental scientist and dugong watcher at James Cook University near Australia's Great Barrier Reef. But "it's a species that is critically endangered in Japanese waters."
"If the Japanese want to save dugongs in their waters--and it's really a Japanese decision rather than a world decision--you need to conserve the sea grass habitat in Okinawa, and building an air base is not the way to do that," she said.
The dugong, which can grow to more than 12 feet long and weigh nearly 2,000 pounds, is strictly vegetarian. The huge herbivore needs to spend most of its waking hours eating, but it feeds mainly at night, and it is thought that boats scare it off its grazing grounds.
The dugong's preferred food is a sea grass that grows off Okinawa, but the plant is killed off by dirt that erodes into the sea as a result of shoreline construction on the subtropical island, said Kasuya, the marine mammal biologist.
"Whenever there is large construction, their food supply is destroyed," he said.
Although the dugong is designated a Japanese national treasure, the political odds here are stacked against it. The United States and international conventions designate the dugong as an endangered species, but Japanese law does not. Hunting dugongs has been banned since 1993, but there is no law protecting their habitat or food supply, officials at the environmental and fisheries agencies said.
The Japanese Cabinet has already approved the decision to move the air base to Henoko. But it could take years for the project to get off the ground. U.S. and Japanese officials are still at odds over use of the new base--Okinawa's governor wants the Americans out after 15 years, which the Pentagon opposes--nor have they decided whether the heliport should be built on landfill or atop an offshore platform.
A Defense Agency official, Kazuyuki Sasayama, said Henoko had been chosen by the Okinawans as the most environmentally benign site for the new base. He said all possible measures will be taken to protect the marine environment.
Dugong defenders aren't satisfied. "Japan's position on wildlife protection is that anything not proven to be harmful is permitted," Kasuya said. "But I believe that, instead, we must view such projects as harmful until proven harmless."
Copyright 2000 Los Angeles Times