Japan at cross roads

Japan at cross roads

Japan is a country with a long history and an intricate culture. It has done its best to maintain its own cultural identity despite immense economic globalisation and material Westernisation. Even today less than one per cent Japanese speak English.

Intrigued by the extraordinary complexity that is Japan, I took the opportunity to find out during a 15-day fellowship, kindly provided to me by the Japan Foundation, what were Japan's traditions in environment management -- the Japanese have always been nature-lovers and have had large and organised settlements for centuries -- and how were those traditions coping with the modern world. I was helped in this task by various friends like Ui Jun, the doyen of Japanese environmentalists whose environmental activism goes back to the 1960s when Japan shocked the world with the Minamata disease, the Japan Ecology Foundation and several others who were introduced to me by Ui Jun, and professor of education Masafumi Nagao. In addition, I visited numerous scientific research centres.

If there is any message that came across sharply, it is that it is best to live with the cycles of nature. More than any civilisation, this is precisely what the Japanese did traditionally. They recycled human excreta back to the land unlike other civilisations which put it into water. The result: it had adequate and clean water even for million-plus cities like Edo, as compared to Rome, which had to bring water from far even though it sat on the Tiber. And as Japanese cities grew, they became major sources of manure and this manure, in turn, became fertiliser for increasing agricultural productivity in rural areas to feed the growing urban population.

But all this was going to change in the 20th century. Chemical fertilisers started the reduction in demand for human manure. Human waste then started getting into urban waterbodies, increasing human disease. The growing popularity of flush toilets led to a further decline in the recycling of human waste. But, recognising the fact that many people in small towns and villages will not have access to sewage systems, Japan went ahead, in its typical hi-tech fashion, to develop the world's most extensive and sophisticated non-sewage human waste disposal system. But, as of now, it is sad that no human waste is recycled.

Adopting this new attitude has led the country into a major environmental problem and, like most of such problems, they have crept upon the country unexpectedly. Extremely short of land, Japan decided to incinerate all its urban garbage. The result: widespread contamination by one of the most poisonous substances known to humankind, dioxin. Catching up with the West may not have affected Japanese culture. But the toxicity inherent in the Western economic model is definitely having an impact.

But the hardworking and extremely disciplined Japanese will definitely find their own solutions. If you have any comments on this issue, do write because our friends in Japan would also love to know.
-- The Editor

For a tiny 377,000-sq km country, Japan provides a lot to read and write about -- it has had more written about it than numerous other nations several times its size. Typically, foreigners discussing the Japanese are likely to build up the conversation around two themes: their traditions and their rise to the summit of modern industrial success. Bonsai, haiku, the picturesque Japanese landscape, the tea ceremony, automobiles, consumer electronics, robots, new-age management principles... the list is endless.

These discussions, however, often miss out on several core issues. Very few people outside Japan get the full picture -- the country that redefined industrialisation is confronting some serious environmental and public health problems, which are becoming more noticeable by the day.

While the general view is that the Japanese are 'nature lovers' -- Japan has more forest in terms of percentage of land than any other country -- the inhabitants of this archipelago overexploited their forests at two stages in history. So much so that they almost caused an "environmental catastrophe", as Conrad Totman, historian from Yale University in the us , puts it in his book The Green Archipelago: Forestry in Pre-industrial Japan . The thickly forested landscape now shows no sign of catastrophe that the country faced centuries back. The increase in its forest cover is phenomenal.

But how long can nature remain healthy? The beautiful scenery is now giving way to golf courses, says Takada Hiroshi, a famous award winning Japanese author. "Mountain villages are being standardised with eighteen holes," he comments. Being an industrialised country, there is no dearth of pollution. This increasing menace has provoked the civil society to become the main catalyst in campaigns against pollution.

The country has a record of a strong governance institution and even stronger private enterprise sector. So, "developing a dynamic non-governmental, non-profit sector" that will be capable of succeeding the former two will be the biggest challenge for the next century, says Masafumi Nagao of the Centre for the Study of International Cooperation in Education at Hiroshima University.

Nagao explains why the civil society was not as active before World War- ii as it should have been: "The civil element in the Japanese society, rooted in community organisations (that is, neighbourhood mutual help), was not allowed to develop autonomously. It was exploited to serve the 'national cause'. The end result was that the whole country became militaristic and ran up to World War- ii ." The war subsequently led to the emergence of the private commercial sector, "which worked in tandem with the State when convenient," says Nagao. "All this, was for 'catching up with the West'." But the civil society is gradually emerging as one of the most active elements in the Japanese society, particularly in the post-modern era, after the country had achieved economic prosperity through rapid industrialisation.

Economic growth and pollution
Japan's economic growth peaked between the 1950s and the 1970s with annual growth rate of approximately 11 per cent and a 4.4 times increase in the gross national product, according to the Global Environment Conservation Proposals for the Earth Summit , a 1992 publication of the Japan Federation of Bar Associations ( jfba ). This was characterised by the coming up of many heavy industries and chemicals industries. These resource-intensive industries lead to widespread environmental degradation. One clear example is waste management.

Industrial wastes increased by about 25 per cent between 1975 and 1985. According to a report in The Nikkei Weekly , Japan has to deal with 400 million tonnes of industrial wastes each year. Building and scraping materials in Japan are mostly short-lived -- very few pre-World War- ii buildings remain. According to an estimate by Atsuhiro Honda of the Clean Japan Centre, construction waste in residential areas of Japan is believed to be 1,100 tonnes per sq km. This is ten times the amount in the us and more than double compared to Germany.

Waste management: forgetting a legacy
The country has had some extraordinary ways to manage waste. The Japanese have traditionally used excreta as organic fertiliser. Even now, with the advent of flush toilets and sewage systems, about half of Japan's population uses toilets that are serviced by night-soil treatment plants. But sewage systems are covering a constantly increasing percentage of Japan's population. Although the archipelago treats all its sewage, the fact remains that the Japanese are turning away from the sustainable practice of using night soil as fertiliser and following unsustainable practices of the West. This is especially sad as Japan can actually provide leadership to the rest of the world in how to handle excreta.

On the atmospheric pollution front, one result of industrial growth has been the country's significant contribution to global warming due to large-scale emissions of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide ( co 2 ). Japan has become one of the most polluting nations, with its per capita co 2 emissions ranking seventh in the world after the us , Canada, the former Soviet Union, Poland, post reunification Germany and the uk . In 1988, it accounted for 4.7 per cent of the world's total co 2 emissions of 5.8 billion tonnes. Its per capita co 2 emissions are about twice that of the world average, according to jfba . Under the Kyoto Protocol, Japan is supposed to cut emissions by six per cent from the 1990 levels.

To combat domestic air pollution, Japan started enforcing strict, target-oriented measures due to the threat pollution poses to human health. Some have proved effective. Stricter emission standards for vehicles were enforced. Japanese manufactured vehicles running across the world account for 30 per cent of global co 2 emissions. New regulations include development of desulphurisation systems.

Japan has also introduced vehicles that run on electricity or methanol, which makes them zero-emission vehicles. The technology is still being developed for greater efficiency. It is worth mentioning that the city of Tokyo is one of the leaders in the world in the fight against urban air pollution from diesel-powered vehicles. In August 1999, the metropolitan government under Shintaro Ishihara, the city's governor, launched a campaign against diesel vehicles (see p42: "Say No! to Diesel Vehicles" ).

But the most talked about pollution problem in Japan is that of cancer-causing dioxins, which are formed when wastes, particularly plastics, are burnt at low temperature. As it industrialised, Japan started producing a lot of wastes. With low land availability, the easiest and cleanest way to get rid of the wastes was thought to be incineration. But then the dioxin menace began to be noticed. Today, the country incinerates more of its wastes that any other country in terms of percentage. And dioxin concentrations are quite high near incinerators. Small wonder the greatest cause of death in Japan is cancer (see graph: Cause of death: cancer ). A study conducted within one km of Ryugasaki, a city in north-eastern Japan, revealed that 42 per cent of deaths in a ten-year span up to 1995 were from cancer. Till December 1998, there were no emission norms for dioxin in Japan, one of the highest dioxin emitting countries of the world.

Despite their reputation of being extremely disciplined and industrious, the Japanese are struggling to deal with the fallout of industrialisation. This only makes the situation very dangerous for developing countries which, invariably, are following the same industrial development model as Japan. If a country as small, regulated, developed and disciplined as Japan cannot find answer to environmental problems like emissions of dioxin, what chances do countries like India have of giving its people a clean future? After having made the most of industrialisation, it will be Japan's ability to cope with environmental challenges that will determine not only the quality of life of its citizens but also its reputation around the world.

This is Japan today. But even the country's past, though well documented, is not understood very well outside the crescent-shaped archipelago, especially the lessons that modern society can learn from its centuries-old traditions of environmental management. Traditions that emerged during the early days of the Japanese civilisation and sustained it right up to the mid-20th century. Some of these are still practised, even if it is in a new context. In the following pages, Down To Earth captures glimpses of Japan's past and present, and their relevance to the future.

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Water and society

About 400 years ago, there was a city in Japan called Edo. Most of its one million people got clean water supplied close to their houses. Human excreta was not dumped into the river. It was used as agricultural fertiliser. The common people had a say in water management, which was based on economy and cost-effectiveness. The rivers were clean....

About 2,300 years ago, there was a city to which all the roads led. The sewers of Rome, however, led to the Tiber river. Its water was unclean. Huge aqueducts -- the money for which came from plunder of other countries -- fetched water from distant springs. Water was supplied to tanks, from where slaves had to fetch it for the rich. Most of the water was reserved for the rich and the powerful....

How do you provide water and sanitation to a city with one million people without exploiting your rivers and water sources, without putting filth into them? Not an easy question, by any means. If there were any easy answers, the state of rivers across the world would have been much better than it is today. Even rivers with a sacred religious status, like what the Ganga means to Hindus, have been polluted to an unimaginable degree.

Human evolution, scientific awakening and industrial revolution notwithstanding, we still do not have sensible ways to handle sewage. We callously ease it into the rivers, looking the other way. As for the availability of clean water, you do not need an expert to tell you that it is a luxury for the moneyed and the powerful in many parts of the world.

So, if any human society at any stage in history managed to achieve a sustainable give-and-take equilibrium with a river, it is essential to take a close, hard look at it. There is a fascinating example, but it calls for a trip back in time. Actually, two different trips into the past, separated by 2,000 years.

The first, a more recent one -- about 400 years back in time -- is towards the Orient, to the city of Edo in Japan, out of which has grown what we call Tokyo. The other is in the Occident, is much older, and is called just what it was called then: Rome.

Edo was an impoverished village at the beginning of the 17th century. By the end of the 17th century it grew into the largest city in the world, comparable in size and population to Rome at the peak of its prosperity. Both the cities had waterworks to cater to the one million people that they harboured. But our story is not about the similarities. Rather the differences between the two.

For one, the waterworks of Edo were more egalitarian, more hygienic than the Roman water management systems. The reason: Edo society was based on the community, especially strong families. Although the samurai were also martial, the community had a much greater say in governance, while the Roman society was military in essence.
The question of equity Despite the elaborate network of water systems -- there were 578 km of massive stone conduits or aqueducts -- the Romans were unable to supply water to most citizens. Not because of water shortage due unequal distribution. The aqueduct could provide 500 litres per person per day, but there were only 1,352 water tanks and fountains in the entire city. This is negligible when you learn that there were 3,612 tanks in the northeastern section of Edo itself, which was supplied water through the Kanda waterworks system (see maps: The difference in details ).

In ancient Rome, piping of water to individual household was prohibited until about the beginning of the Christian era as construction and maintenance work could not keep pace with the growing population. Servants had to do the hard work to fetch water -- 17 per cent of the entire supply of water was provided to the emperor, 24 per cent to the officials, 39 per cent went to rich families and industry, and a mere 13 per cent was allocated to ordinary citizens. However, in Edo, the first city in Japan to have a drinking water supply system, the approach was different. Water was supplied to nearly all the residents of the densely populated downtown and to 70 per cent of the people of greater Edo. Moreover, the city coped quite well with the rapid urban growth and increase in population. What was the difference in technology used by the two cities?
Technology: benefits of decentralisation A network of underground wooden pipes branching through much of Edo was the highlight of the technology at the core of its waterworks. The construction was done with such care that even the main pipes were not exposed.

While Roman waterworks did not provide for irrigation, Edo's systems provided water for irrigation, development of new agricultural land and even fire prevention. The Edo waterworks grew in stages. The construction of Edo's first water supply system began in 1590. Later, it expanded. In 1630 it came under the Kanda waterworks. The water was mainly drawn from the Tama river, flowing along the western suburb of the city. The decentralised nature of Edo waterworks did not mean that they were unsustainable and short-term. In fact, the opposite was true. Their durability can be judged by the fact that it served the city for 300 years and was operational till 1901.

Another interesting contrast is the development of water supply technology with regard to war and peace. While ancient Roman waterworks were a display of the military prowess of the Roman empire, the people of Edo used military engineering in developing domestic water supply systems. Water was often used in the warfare that went on for about 100 years prior to the Edo period, which lasted from 1603 to 1868.

One famous example of this was when a feudal lord who later became the ruler of Japan, Hideyoshi Toyotomi, used a very clever tactic of inundation to successfully siege a castle. In no time, the imaginative warrior designed and built an earthen wall to encircle the castle, made precise calculations to draw water from the nearby river to flood the castle and drive out the enemy. In peacetime, such technology was used for constructing waterworks. There was another benefit of building the waterworks, namely, the soldiers were employed in the construction activity, providing them employment and gainfully utilising their potential. During the Edo period, 32 waterworks were completed in various parts of Japan. Of these, 25 were completed in the 17th century, when attention shifted from war to municipal development.

Recent excavations reveal the high level of knowledge and expertise. Huge flumes (water channels that drive a mill wheel) were dug out. These were the main trunk lines. The floor of such channels was made of wood. It featured grooves filled with sand and clay in order to make the floor durable and impervious. The sides were made of rectangular stones placed one on top of another. The top was also covered with huge slabs of stones. The secondary pipes were made of hollowed logs or planks placed one on top of another, while the smaller population was provided water through with bamboo.

The grand symbols and their cost
Military in nature, the Roman society built huge, expensive aqueducts. To them, these were symbols of a high civilisation and a display of their power, not just at home but also in conquered lands. The main factor behind the construction of these large projects was war and governance of other countries and races.

For example, take the Aqua Anio, which was completed in 269 bc . This was funded by the plunder from the defeat of King Pyrrhus of Epirus in the north of Greece. Similarly, the spoils of wars with Corinth and Carthage provided for the Aqua Marcia, built in 130 bc .

Another reason for constructing huge aqueducts, especially in regions conquered or occupied by the Romans, was to create 'grand' symbols of the Roman Empire and its 'high civilisation'. The cost was, obviously, not a limiting factor, and Rome spent lavishly on aqueducts.

The people of Edo, however, were quite aware of the expenses of constructing waterworks. The Roman water systems were maintained by the bureaucracy for the State and used, therefore, without equity. The Edo waterworks were people-driven.

Due to insufficiency of funds from the government, some construction works were completed through funds acquired through repeated petitions by townsfolk. People were conscientious and cooperative, afeature conspicuous by its absence in Rome. Though the Edo society was ruled mainly by the samurai or warriors, the common people had a strong say in management. Public participation existed during those days, and this was the driving force in the development of efficient waterworks.

Clean water, clean ecology
The ancient Romans treated their rivers as sewers, dumped garbage and sewage into the Tiber. Because of this, the riverwater was not suitable for drinking. Consequently, water was drawn from distant sources like natural springs and Tiber was used more as a receptacle for untreated sewage.

Edo had a more sensible approach. Water from the Tama river was well utilised by its inhabitants. The people of Edo utilised human excreta as fertiliser for agriculture, a tradition that continued into the 20th century. Even Tadashi Ogawa, the current director of the Japan Foundation in New Delhi, can recall the management of human waste: "I remember how people used to sell excreta." He says the riverwater was largely free of contamination and was even suitable for drinking. This also cut down the expenses on a sewage system.

Initially, Edo depended on the small rivers and streams that eventually entered the Edo Bay. But, due to an increase in population by the mid-16th century, this was not possible. There was a need for more sophisticated means of water supply. By the end of the 17th century, two major and four supplementary systems, supplying water to every part of Edo, were already completed.

But the saddest part of the story is that modern Japan is pursuing the same Rome-like model and forgetting the beauty and sustainability of its traditions. Although untreated waste is not dumped into the rivers even today, nobody uses excreta as fertliser. A rich traditions is dying out.

The article has been adapted from 'A Watery Tale of Two Cities: Roma and Edo', published in the September 1997 issue (No 11) of Rivers and Japan.

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Regreening of Japan

If there is one thing that a visitor to Japan cannot miss, it is the greenery. More than two-thirds of the country's land area -- 68 per cent, to be precise -- is forested. No other country has as much forest in terms of percentage of land area. And all this is despite the fantastic industrial growth and very high density of population. But it is not that Japan has always had large, healthy forests. The state of its forests has been pretty much see-saw.

Since time immemorial wood has been an integral part of Japanese society and culture. Evidence, dating as far back as 10,000 bc , reveals that forests were utilised by the Japanese for food, wood, construction and many other products. Exploitation of forests declined in the late 17th century. In the coming century, woodland holders started adopting methods to improve production. This led to a sea change in Japan's approach to its forests. In 1897, forest laws were introduced, massive afforestation undertaken and several incentives were offered by the government for restoring forests in order to meet the demand of industrialisation.

World War- ii dealt a telling blow to the country's forests. But, again, in a manner typically Japanese, forest management was overhauled. And so the present state of Japan's forest. But the Japanese have been severely criticised for promoting their forests at the cost of forests in developing countries, especially Southeast Asia (see box: Plunder thy neighbour ). Japan's history of forest management is an interesting study in dos and don'ts -- a paradox of inspirational revival and using other countries to promote its own forests.

Salad days of forestry
Exploitation of forests was at its height during the Edo era (1603-1867). Tokugawa Ieyaus took over the title of shogun (generallissimo), declaring himself the ruler. Under him, the Tokugawa shogunate and the feudal warlords took over the administration and transferred the capital from Kyoto to Edo, which has grown into Tokyo now. Their land holdings were bigger than those of the imperial families.

The forests in Japan were broadly divided into three different groups during the Tokugawa rule:

- land owned by the feudal lords or the government ( jikiyama ), and managed by the chief village administrator

- village or community forest ( iriaichi ), maintained by one village or more than one adjacent villages for their use, and

- forests owned by individuals, temples or shrines that were utilised by the samurai warriors.

Even the forests owned by individuals and communities were controlled indirectly by feudal lords by levying taxes. The feudal rulers were involved in grand projects that consumed a lot of timber for the construction of temples, shrines, monuments, statues, buildings, and even building cities and towns like Edo, creating a great demand for timber and related products.

This construction boom remains almost unparalleled in Japanese history. Timber business thrived as there was a lot of money to be made. The feudal lords continued to control the lands by declaring any forest with good quality timber as protected. Gradually, forests owned by individuals shrunk and those owned by feudal lords expanded. The feudal lords' greed and growing restrictions generated a conflict between local communities and the State.

Restoration in the Meiji period
Growing conflicts and other factors led to the decline of the Tokugawa rule and feudalism. This was followed by the resumption of the imperial rule under the emperor Meiji in 1868. This period, called the Meiji Restoration, was the onset of a new era. Meiji rulers were bent upon transforming Japan into a capitalist, industrialised country. They abolished feudal ownership of land and recognised individual ownership rights. Large forests, previously owned by communities and feudal lords, were nationalised.

Edo was renamed Tokyo. The government sought to transform the fragmenting forest system into a uniform and modern one. Towards the end of the 19th century, forestlands were categorised broadly into two sections: national and non-national forests. The Meiji policy of recognising the ownership rights of land led to the growth of privately owned forests. As there were taxes on forest holdings, poor land owners were compelled to sell their land to wealthy landowners and timber merchants, leading to a consolidation of private forest land. By the 20th century, two-thirds of the forestland shifted into the hands of the government and public bodies.
The forest law of 1897
To meet the timber demands of a growing economy and to modernise forestry, the forest law ( Shinrin-ho ) was enacted in 1897. It identified twelve types of protected forests, encroachment of which was strictly prohibited. Nationalised forests were brought under large-scale afforestation and infrastructural development projects between 1899 and 1921. It projected an initial target of 4,000 hectares (ha) per year, which peaked at 40,000 ha per year in the final stages. About 380,000 ha is estimated to have been forested under the project.

The government began promoting afforestation on municipal forests by providing seedlings. This was followed in 1907 by a nationwide afforestation programme called Shokuju Shorei Kisoku . It suggested the constitution of forest cooperatives if two-thirds of the owners holding two-thirds of the forest area in a specified region agreed. Once this was formed, the owners of the remaining area were obliged to join. The number of forest cooperatives increased from 547 in 1911 to 5,086 in 1946. There were subsidies to promote silviculture, building forest infrastructure and other similar activities.

World War-II to the present day
To support Japan's war campaign, unprecedented felling of trees took place, destroying of 400,000 ha of forests by 1944. After the war, the main task of the government was to rebuild the war-ravaged economy and restore degraded forests. Important changes were made to the management systems of national forests. Forest cooperatives were reorganised and members were offered loans, tax concessions and subsidies.

By 1952 the total afforested area increased more than five times as compared to 1945 -- from 70,000 ha to 400,000 ha. The total afforested area between 1951 and 1960 was estimated at 3,750,000 ha. According to Kentaro Kanazawa of the Japan Environmental Council, "Approximately 40 per cent of Japan's forests is accounted for by afforested trees such as cryptomerias and Japanese cypresses." Between 1971 and 1986, forests expanded by almost 38 per cent.

Exploitation of Southeast Asian forests
Post-World War- ii , Japan's successful regeneration of its forests lay in not utilising its forest resources and importing large quantities of timber from Southeast Asian countries like the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia. "Only about 30 per cent of the volume of trees grown in Japan's forests are cut down each year," says Kanazawa, "and the percentage of domestic self-support of lumber does not reach even 20 per cent."

According to a survey by the Food and Agriculture Organisation, an average 2 million ha of tropical forest is lost in tropical Asia. The Japan Federation of Bar Associations claims that Japan's import of timber from neighbouring countries significantly contributed to depletion of tropical and other forests, loss of many species and the deterioration of soil. Imported timber is cheaper and better in quality. By 1986 the import of tropical timber for the entire European Union was 15.72 million cubic metres (mcm), while that of Japan was 15.71 mcm. Between 1989 and 1991, Japan imported forest products worth more than us $13,077 million and exported forest products of the value of over us $1,658 million. Kanazawa says more than 60 per cent of this import is from the Malaysian state of Sarawak because of which "the tropical primary forest is on the verge of exhaustion". The effect of this is very bad on the Penan tribal people of Sarawak, who are nomadic hunters and survive on the forest and its produce.

Local governments in Japan have started taking steps. On October 10, 1991, the Tokyo metropolitan government announced a policy to reduce the use of tropical wood in construction projects. The chief of the construction bureau of Nagoya city issued a notice to industries to use plywood not made from tropical wood. However, Japan will have to do much more to ensure that its forestry policy does not destroy forests in developing countries. If it continues with the ways of the past or is sluggish in changing the present state of affairs, it stands to be labelled in the international environmental community as an imperialist nation that cannot look beyond its backyard.

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Flushing down its traditions

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