Hakata Bay – a threatened Japanese wetland

Forest and Bird, Issue 266, 1 November 1992, Page 8

Hakata Bay – a threatened Japanese wetland

Sarah Lowe

BIRDS RESTING during their annual migratory journey at Auckland’s sister city in Japan, may no longer find a sister’s welcome. | The city of Fukuoka is strategically situated on the northern tip of Japan’s southernmost island of Kyushu, at the closest point to Korea and the Asian mainland, making its Hakata Bay wetlands an important recuperation spot for exhausted birds. But Fukuoka is an expanding city and is now pressing ahead with construction plans for the bay area, which will consume and drastically disturb avian habitats. The case is not an isolated one but it is all the more important because the problem recurs everywhere in Japan; at present the country has only four sites (none of which are tidal) that are protected under Ramsar, the international wetlands convention. The | Japan Wetlands Action Network, formed in 1991 to link local groups struggling to protect patches of natural environment, chose Hakata as one of only four areas for priority protection. Reclamation of land at Hakata Bay has been ongoing for over a century, but it is only since 1959 that major plans were put forward for the infilling of most of the bay. The current plan is to construct a huge artificial island with port facilities directly above the shellfish banks which sustain the birds. This is the shallowest part of the bay and holds tens of thousands of birds each year including six internationally endangered species: the blackfaced spoonbill, Saunder’s gull, the Asiatic dowitcher, Nordmann’s greenshank, | spoonbilled sandpiper and Swinhoe’s egret. These are not Fukuoka’s birds, not Japan’s — they are the world’s. Hakata Bay is currently designated a "Wildlife Protec-

tion Area" — a title with no practical meaning. In spring the tidal flats are thronging with people searching for shellfish and the birds are continually disturbed. An Environmental Impact Assessment for the scheme is being conducted by a company which is under the umbrella of the city government, the proponent of the construction. EIAs in Japan are notorious for their findings that wildlife can always find somewhere else to go. Residents’ opposition has taken the form of environmental study days, clean-ups, picnics and a "birdathon" — a bird-watching day in which 113 species were noted within five kilometres of the bay. The Hakata port authorities have responded by proposing a "bird park" and artificial tidal flat on the island. The scheme is widely seen as a product of pride and greed. The present docks are only working at 30 percent of capacity. Neighbouring KitaKyushu is only 50 kilometres away and is also a port town in the race to expand and to become the "gateway to Asia". The proposed cost for the whole scheme is $NZ4-6 billion. Ironically, construction is set to start in mid-1993 just as

Japan hosts the 5th World Ramsar Conference, at Kushiro in the north. Although Auckland City Council has written to Fukuoka City expressing concern for the wetland, New Zealand is unlikely to formally criticise what is seen as a Japanese internal matter. Opposition, however, remains strong and the people of Fukuoka believe that international opinion can save the city’s life-giving wetland from destruction. Please help by writing to either the Japanese Embassy in Wellington or the Consulate in Auckland asking that Japan set an environmentally responsible example and save this important wetland.