Myth, Protest and Struggle in Okinawa

Kin Bay and Shiraho 141
Konwa-kai). 23 As a result of recommendations made by the Discussion Committee,
the prefectural government commissioned an Environmental Impact Assessment
of the New Ishigaki Airport construction plan in July, and made it public. 24 The
Assessment basically confirmed the prefecture’s evaluation that Shiraho was the
most suitable site for the new airport and found that the landfill was compatible
with coral preservation. Ui Jun pointed out that the finding was based on inadequate
data, and argued that the information related to the environmental effects of the
airport had been largely kept confidential. 25
About seventy researchers and professionals in Okinawa and mainland Japan,
who similarly questioned the official data on the airport construction project, formed
the New Ishigaki Airport Construction Examination Group (Shin Ishigaki Kūkō
Kensetsu o Kangaeru Kai). 26 In their publications, 27 the scholars in the Examination
Group systematically reworked the government’s Environmental Impact Assessment
on Shiraho and re-examined both environmental and socio-economic impacts
of the new airport. However, the audience for their publications was mostly limited
to already interested parties in Okinawa and mainland Japan. Their findings were
directly opposed to those of the original report.
The support of an American marine biologist, Katherine Muzik, played a key
role in raising concerns overseas on the political issues threatening the coral reefs
in Shiraho. Muzik was living in Okinawa, researching the coral around the islands.
In Ishigaki City she made a speech at the first meeting of a citizens’ opposition
group against the new airport based in the pro-airport Ishigaki City, stressing
the value of the rare Shiraho coral reefs and the destructive effect the airport
construction would have, from a scientist’s perspective (Yaeyama Nippō 11 July
1983). Muzik’s research was motivated by her personal distress over the coral that
used to decorate the islands of Okinawa in a necklace shape, of which about 95
per cent was killed by the government-funded post-reversion industrialization
projects following the Okinawa Marine Exposition in 1975 in northeastern Okinawa
(Japan Times 2 March 1983; Muzik 1992).
In April 1984, the Naha-based Okinawa, Yaeyama, and Shiraho Ocean and Life
Protection Group asked Muzik and Richard Murphy from the Jacques Cousteau
Society to investigate the coral reefs in Shiraho (Yaeyama Mainichi Shimbun
21 April 1984). The aim of the investigation was to disprove the officials’ statement
that the coral in Shiraho was in worse shape than other areas around Ishigaki. After
comparative investigation in Ishigaki waters, Muzik, Murphy, and Takaesu Asao,
representative of the Okinawa, Yaeyama, and Shiraho Ocean and Life Protection
Group, reported that the coral in Shiraho was exceptionally lively and healthy,
compared to other areas (Yaeyama Mainichi Shimbun 24 April 1984).
In 1985, Muzik reported the rare value of the coral reefs in Shiraho at the Fifth
International Coral Reefs Conference held in Tahiti, as well as the airport issue
that potentially endangered them (Makishi 1997: 215). In November 1987, a
delegation from the World Conservation Union (IUCN) came to Shiraho to
investigate the coral reefs. On the basis of this investigation, the 17th General
Meeting of the IUCN in San José, Costa Rica, in February 1988 passed a resolution
on the Shiraho coral reefs. The IUCN urged the Japanese government to reconsider