①より続く
Now, I would like to analyze this case from the view point of history of Japanese
environmental problems.
From 1950s to 1960s, many serious pollution-caused diseases occurred in Japan.
The Minamata-disease caused by organic mercury compound from Japan Nitrogen
in Kumamoto was one of the most well-known cases.
Then the pollution problem became a big socio-political issue. The pollution
issue was intensely discussed at the general assembly of the members of Diet,
and the debate on the issue was extensive and 13 acts were issued. Now retrospectively,
the 1970 General Assembly of the Diet is called "Diet of Pollution Issue".
Petitions for victimized people and social movements to rescue them were culminated
to court cases now known to Four Pollution-caused Disease Suits in the beginnings
of 1970s.
The governmental policy-making on pollution issues was not effective at this
stage, because in those days, the handling of these issues were divided in bureaucratic
orders. Both the Ministry of Health and Welfare and the ministry of International
Trade and Industry had their departments which had dealt with pollution issues.
The former was likely to take a side of victims and concerned with health issues.
But the latter had more connections in the industrial world, so they could utilize,
so-called "technical knowledge", to reject requests from the former,
and their priority was on promotion of the industrial activities. The government
was criticized for such decision, and this matter was in the spotlight.
As a result of long debate, In 1971, the Environment Agency was finally established. From 1971 to 1973, all four big court cases of pollution diseases have got judgments favorable to the plaintiffs. It seemed that Japanese environmental policy has started.
Even after that, however, as we found through Teshima's case, beautiful mountains
and seas have been destroyed by public enterprises or illegal dumping wastes
in fact. So we can raise a question that: Is the Environmental Agency properly
functioning?
From the beginning, the Agency was composed of temporary transferred bureaucrats
from other major ministries. There was bureaucratic division in it. And divided
interests of those Ministries led less attention to people, but the dominant
initiative was taken by the bureaucrats from the Ministry of International Trade
and Industry, so the policy-making has been almost always supporting the industrial
interests. This tendency of the government affects environmental policies of
local governments.
From late 1970s to 1990s, it is the period of major set-back. According to a
report of Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in 1976,
they said at the period, there was no more pollution. They began to use the
word, "environment" instead of "pollution", and their job
is move to regulate the limit of exhaustion gas and so on. But in fact, there
are still invisible pollutions, and regulations of NOx and etc. have not been
effective yet.
And since the late 1990s onward, "eco" businesses have been growing
rapidly. It is said that they make it possible to realize both economic growth
and environmental protection at one time. Yet are "eco" businesses
really good for the environment?
Seeing the major changes in policy making discussed above, we can argue that interests of the industries were gradually getting higher priorities in environmental policy. This tendency is becoming more and more obvious since the major economic recession started in Japan in the 1990s.
We can summarize the transition of focal point of Japanese pollution and environmental
policy. Key words are:
From 1950s to 60s, it was, out break of pollutions, victims.
In the beginning of 1970s, it was, environmental policy for the rescue of the
victims, but in fact, bureaucratic division and industrial priority.
From the late 1970s to 1990s, it was, from "Pollution" to "Environmental
management", and making regulation for acceptable contamination for industry
and people.
From late 1990s onward, it is Eco-Recycle Boom.
Now, I would like to reflect this transition to our issue of Teshima-Naoshima industrial waste management.
In fact, in order to make this costly project profitable, the eco-town project
required more industrial waste to process. So they decided to take more waste
from the big cities like Osaka, Kobe. Techno-scientific treatment of piles of
the waste at the high-tech furnace has justified more industrial waste to come
to the area. Also the cleanness of the new furnace is still dubious. No one
can tell about the quality of the furnace so far. Only a change is, that once
it was crude dumping of the waste, but now, it is chemical and high-tech procession
of the dumps in the same area.
We would like to examine the conception of Eco-Town itself. This conception
is argued by Ministry of Economy Trade and Industry, that Eco-town is aiming
at forming a society which has an economic system in harmony with the environment.
This is actually presupposed a society of mass consumption, and aims at promoting
the economic development of the area where the industry is in decline. It is
our argument to examine the so-called "eco-businesses", which are
growing rapidly, and the names of "recycle" or "eco" have
favorable images.
As we have demonstrated our case study of Teshima Problem, and examination of that case through the historical account of the Japanese environmental policy, we discussed growing tendency of eco and recycle utopian view, and complicated bureaucratic structure of both central and local governing systems.
All in all, Japanese environmental policy-making is dominated by the Ministry of International Trade and Industry. And actual waste dumping problem happened at Teshima was not properly handled because of such entangled bureaucratic system. The final decision for "Eco-town" plan was also in line with MITI initiative. People's life and beautiful sea and island are always getting lower priority in the Japanese environmental policy.
Thank you very much for your kind attention.