WETLANDS THE JAPANESE CONNECTION

Forest and Bird, Issue 268, 1 May 1993, Page 27

WETLANDS THE JAPANESE CONNECTION

MARK BRAZIL

Next month Japan will host an international show-case meeting on wetlands — the 5th World Ramsar Conference. But as

reports, Japan’s record In protecting tts significant range of wetlands — vital for migratory birds as far away as New Zealand — is less than it should be.

HE JAPANESE archipelago stretches for more than 3,000 km along the Asian coastline linking the subarctic, in Hokkaido, with the subtropics, in the Nansei Shoto islands. Imagine what that means for the enormous range of habitats within a country which, while largely mountainous, has a coastline of more than 27,000 km. Prolonged geological isolation and the fact that the islands were spared the ravages of north-east Asia’s last major glacial period, means these habitats harbour an

astonishing wealth of wildlife, from the alpine zone of the Japan Alps, to the coral reefs of Okinawa. Many species are endemic but, as a consequence of Japan’s geographical position astride a vital arm of the East Asian/ Australasian migratory bird flyway, the archipelago also hosts large numbers of migrants from Siberia, South-East Asia, Australia and New Zealand — and not only birds. Sea mammals such as northern fur seals, and many cetaceans migrate through Japanese waters. Richest of all of Japan’s diverse habitats are its wetlands, ranging from alpine wetlands and

subarctic coastal marshes to southern mudflats, mangroves and coral reefs. These wetlands are vital not only for resident species, but also for migratory wildlife such as cranes, vast numbers of waterfowl, gulls and hordes of shorebirds. Wetlands are widely acknowledged as the most productive ecosystems on earth, supporting high biological diversity, functioning as breeding, nursery or feeding grounds for coastal fish, helping to regulate water supplies, and crucial in flood and erosion control. Yet too often they are viewed as wet wastelands, ideal, because of their topography, for reclama

tion, and of no other value. Thanks to drainage, reclamation, pollution or over-exploitation, wetlands are amongst the most threatened habitats in the world. However, wetland destruction and degradation has received little attention, particularly in Japan. Yet the huge numbers of filter-feeding animals that live in tidal flats and salt marshes purify water by consuming immense quantities of plankton and organic detritus. Loss of these precious habitats and their watercleansing capacities ultimately damages the marine food chain, on which, ironically, the Japanese are particularly dependent. Japan, like many developed countries, has already lost most of her wetlands. Those left are scattered, like isolated stepping stones, and are threatened. No fewer than 85 of these remaining wetlands, amongst the most important in Asia, have been declared of international significance and worthy of designation as Ramasar sites. Japan is a crucial link in a chain of feeding and resting sites for long-distance migrants. The entire length of the archi-

pelago forms one arm of the East Asian flyway, while another arm of the same flyway passes up through the Nansei Shoto, Kyushu and the Korean Peninsula. Kyushu, the most southern of Japan’s main islands, lies on both of these branches and so wetlands here have a double significance. Yet Kyushu’s wetlands are dramatically under-protected and over-threatened. The crisis facing Japan’s wetlands is an international one. One imagines that, in a nation so dependent on marine resources for food, not only fish, but also shellfish and for seaweed cultivation, there would be the highest concern for the survival of an ecosystem which, amongst other things, helps to purify in-flowing river water, and reduces nutrient overloads in shallow waters. The purifying capacity of the tidal flat biota is immense, so great as to be incalculable, yet paradoxically the value of wetlands has been largely ignored in Japan. The rate of loss of coastal wetland habitats alone in Japan is a depressing one. The result of four decades of targeted

continuous development has meant that 35 percent of tidal flats were drained and reclaimed between 1945 and 1978 and a much larger percentage degraded. Yet none of Japan’s four wetland sites protected under the Ramsar Convention are coastal. In fact, by 1989, on the four main islands, less than half the entire sea coast was in a natural state. At the current rate all of Japan’s natural sea coast, salt-marshes and tidal flats included, will be gone within 65 years. ENTION JAPAN and wetlands _ in the same breath and most ~ naturalists can summon up im- / 4. ages of flocks of graceful snowite eae cranes in their Hokkaido homeland, where, dependent on the

remaining, mostly coastal, marshes and reedbeds for nesting, they number about 500. The more widely read may also know of Arasaki, Kyushu, in southern Japan, where 10,000 migratory hooded and white-naped cranes gather each winter and which are a conspicuous eco-link between Japan and her continental neighbours — Korea, China and Russia. But dependence, amongst birds alone, on Japan’s wetlands does not end with the cranes. Up to one and a half million waterfowl, including whooper and Bewick’s swans, bean and white-fronted geese, and more than twenty species of ducks, flock to Japanese wetlands each winter, and tens of thousands of a wide range of shorebirds from northern Europe and Asia pass through on spring and autumn migration. Some of these long distance migrants, such as godwits and knots, moving within the East Asian/Australasian flyway, reach New Zealand in considerable numbers. For others like turnstone, far eastern curlew, red-necked stint, sharp-tailed sandpiper and Japanese snipe, only a few dozen to a few thousand spend any time here. But Japan’s position on their flyway is a crucial one for all of them. Other groups, not only shorebirds, are dependent too. The numbers of wintering gulls visiting Japan’s coastal wetlands

are huge, but unstudied; one of them, Saunders gull, ranks as a world rarity, numbering only about 2,000. We now know it to be especially dependent on the estuaries of northern and western Kyushu, where 25 percent or more gather during winter. Kyushu’s wetlands form a crucial part of its range, yet not only are its wintering areas unprotected, they are seriously threatened (see item on Hakata Bay, Forest & Bird, November 1992), though they also support other endangered species such as black-faced spoonbill and Chinese egret. Japan, through ratifying the Ramsar Convention and by establishing a number of bilateral migratory bird treaties in Asia and Australasia, has expressed a commitment to the protection of wetlands and such species as the far eastern curlew, Saunders gull, and others. An expressed commitment unfortunately is not enough. Conservation action is necessary to protect habitats, to fulfil that commitment. Only when Japan has made practical ef- | forts to protect habitats at home will she be able to begin to tackle issues elsewhere along the flyways. Japan is of course implicated further afield, especially now in the Russian Far East, where a massive

What is Ramsar?

AMSAR is the name of a town in Iran where, in 1971, the first inter-governmental meeting on "Wetlands of International Importance Especially as Waterfowl Habitat" was convened. Signatories to the resulting convention, known as the Ramsar Convention, the first international conservation convention, now number nearly 70 countries, and more than 550 sites covering more than 35.5 million hectares have been designated as Ramsar sites. The Ramsar Convention recognises wetlands in their widest possible context, valuing all permanent, temporary, natural or artificial wetlands of any size, including peatlands and bodies of static or flowing water, ranging from salt to fresh, from inland rivers and lakes, to marshes, estuaries and coastal areas, even to coral reefs. The parties to the convention have recognised: ¢ the ecological importance of wetlands as highly productive environments, ¢ their value because of their rich faunas and floras, * the great economic benefits they bring through fishery production, maintenance of water tables, water storage and flood control, shore-line stabilisation, water purification and so on, and ¢ that wetlands are international, used widely by migratory species, and affected by both water and airborne pollution and development, all of which move across political boundaries. The purpose of the convention is, having recognised the importance of wetlands, to curb their continued losses, to ensure their current and future conservation, and (with increasing emphasis as time passes) to ensure their "wise use"’. Japan became a signatory to the Ramsar Convention in 1980, when it listed Kushiro Marsh in Hokkaido (famous for its cranes). In the subsequent 12 years it has designated three further sites (IZunuma and Uchinuma in 1985, a major wintering ground for geese; Kuccharo-ko in northern Hokkaido, in 1989, a major staging area for migratory swans; and, most recently, Utonaiko, in south-west Hokkaido, in 1991, a staging and wintering area for large numbers of swans, geese and ducks). The four sites total

10,402 hectares. But is that good, or bad? Where does Japan stand in the international community of conservers of wetlands? With just four sites, Japan has less than any other advanced industrialised nation. Of Japan’s 85 internationally significant wetlands, 24 have been further identified as of the utmost importance (see map). Of these, just four are Ramsar sites, and despite various frameworks within which Japanese wetlands could be protected, only 0.2 percent by area of Japan’s internationally important wetlands are currently covered by protective legislation. By all international comparisons, whether by land area, wetland area, habitat range, species requiring protection and so on, Japan has designated disproportionately few sites and a disproportionately small area. As a result, by 1992, Japan ranked only 31st on number and 54th on area out of 67 signatory countries. Japan’s Ramsar sites fail to span the ecological and geographical range of wetland habitats, let alone protect a significant proportion of them, and fail to protect important aspects of a major flyway and its branches. All four are inland freshwater sites, and none protect coastal mudflats or estuaries, the habitats most critically lacking in protection, and which are absolutely vital as habitat for the conservation of migratory shorebirds. Furthermore, three of her existing Ramsar sites are currently seriously threatened by both development plans and habitat degradation. Japan’s current stance within the Ramsar community is therefore a particularly weak one, a weakness further highlighted by Japan’s position on a major migration route, the species dependent on her, and, of course, Japan’s enormous, and enviable, financial resources compared with most other countries. Towards the other end of the spectrum, for example, is the UK, which joined Ramsar in 1976 with 13 sites and now has 53, covering a wide range of habitats the length and breadth of the country. Japanese wetlands are generally far more important than those of the UK, as Japan spans a wider range of climatic zones and resulting habitats than the CK:

drive for logging is being fuelled by Japanese and South Korean corporations whose activities will have serious impacts on the wetlands of the region and the many species dependent on them. N SPITE OF, or perhaps because of, her poor showing in the arena of wetland conservation, Japan, in particular Kushiro City located adjacent to Japan’s largest remaining peat marsh, offered to host the next meeting of the

parties to the Ramsar Convention in June this year. Promises made at the last meeting of the parties, that Japan would designate at least ten more sites now seem unlikely to be met. In fact rumours indicate that Japan may even fail to bring numbers up to ten. Perhaps then Kushiro is hosting the meeting despite Japan’s stance. There is talk of local electioneering, of taking advantage of the meeting to boost the tourist potential of the area, and not, unfortunately, enough talk about boosting the environmental protection of Japanese wetlands. In June, however, all eyes will be focused on Japan and her apparent desire to take a firmer lead in Asia based not solely on economic might.

The Ramsar Convention is, however, something of a contradiction since it is the very governments promising to protect wetlands which are actually destroying them. In Japan alone government public works projects threaten 80 percent of the wetlands identified as of international importance. Will hosting the 1993 Ramsar conference set the stage for conscientious conservation action in Japan, or will it be a convenient smoke screen behind which unchanged destructive policies can hide? What will delegates see at the 1993 meeting? They will certainly see an apparently pristine marsh and beautiful cranes, though the unseen hydrology of the marsh is actually in an endangered

state and the breeding success of the cranes remains poor. I doubt that they will grasp the atmosphere of powerful negativity towards local NGOs held in Japanese government circles, nor the fact that public opinion is largely ignored. They may also miss the fact that the role of development in Japan has been and remains paramount. Discussion and emphasis on sustainable development and "wise use" could play straight into Japanese hands here as they divert it to their own economic ends, particularly because ‘wise use" seems to defy definition, even by the Ramsar Bureau, leaving it open to enormous abuses.

If Japan does take a lead, she will do so with a concept of environmentalism and conservation sometimes subtly, sometimes vastly different from that in the western mind, with the emphasis on technological advancement and development of the human environment — an environment with its focus on energy conservation, water purification, sewage treatment, and industrial pollution emission control. All these are worthy, and essential, in terms of global reduction of human impact, yet they are vastly different from the emphasis westerners place on species, habitat and ecosystem conservation and maintenance.

EW ZEALAND has five Ramsar sites totaling 38,000 ha and, as a member of the convention, we will be sending a representative to next month’s conference. However, New Zealand’s recent record on wetlands is poor. In 1991 in a breach of its Ramsar obligations the current government allowed Landcorp to sell 1,100 hectares of the internationally significant Kaimaumau swamp in Northland, containing the largest resident number of threatened species of any wetland in New Zealand, to developers. The government’s action has forced Forest and Bird, at considerable cost, to take out a heritage order for the wetland.

¥ VY) Y HILE JAPAN'S education MW \ | system can justifiably claim ‘\/ honours in the extent of literacy and numeracy, when it comes to teaching a balanced view of the natural world, it fails. A survey in 1983 revealed that over 70 percent of science and social studies teachers considered environmental education to mean teaching children to tidy their rooms and not to drop litter. The long-term absence of real environmental education is reflected in the current generation of policy-makers and planners whose misunderstanding of basic ecology is shocking. One town planning department official in southern Honshu, in supporting estuarine reclamation, referred to complaints that the mudflat was home to mosquitoes, as if that were the major issue. "Greenery can

be preserved on the reclaimed land," he added, without explaining how populations of wetland species, shellfish, crabs and migratory birds, could somehow, suddenly make a home on dry land. While paying lip service to international environmental concerns, Japan’s vast overseas development aid contributes to environmental degradation on a massive scale, and at home no greater concern is shown for the local environment. Japan’s destruction of its own wetlands is misguided and thoughtless, but through development aid it is blindly exporting that destruction further and further afield. Without a concerted effort to develop meaningful environmental education, and without pressure from abroad, Japanese attitudes and actions are unlikely to change. %

Dr Mark Brazil is a specialist on Japanese wildlife and the environment. He is the author of The Birds of Japan and A Birdwatcher’s Guide to

Japan, writes a "Wild Watch" column in The Japan Times newspaper and has published in a wide range of journals and magazines on his research into the ecology and behaviour of local bird species.