The Committee of Seto-uchi

Establishment:
The Japanese Inland Sea (Seto-uchi), surrounded by the main islands of Honshu, Shikoku and Kyushu, stretches 450 km from east to west and an average of 55 km from north to south, covers an area of 22,000 km2, has a coastline extending for 6,000 km, an average depth of 37 m, and contains 800 billion cubic meters of water.  It is studded with some 840 islands, and there are many traits, areas of open sea and bays.  The annual average temperature is 15oC, the rainfall 1,000 – 1,500 mm, and the area is richly blessed by nature.  More than 4,300 kinds of biological species have been confirmed.  With its varied and beautiful scenery, Seto-uchi is often called Mediterranean of the Orient, and almost all of the central part was designated as Japanfs first National Park in 1923.
     From about 1960 Japanfs development centered chiefly on heavy chemical industry, with several petrochemical complexes being located along the Inland Seafs coast line in places such as Tokuyama, Iwakuni, Mizushima, Niihama, etc.  Comprehensive steel plants were established in Sakai, Kobe, Himeji, Kurashiki, Fukuyama and Oita, while shipbuilding, electric power generation and vehicle production also increased rapidly.  In 1972, 53% of steal production, 40% of oil refining, 35% of petrochemicals and 42% of electric power generation for the whole of Japan were concentrated along the coast of Seto-uchi.
     The white sand and green pine trees along the coast disappeared as land was reclaimed in one place after another.  From 1949 to 1969 the area of reclamation was 163 km2, reaching 1.6 times that of the previous 50 years.  Seaweed-growing areas and tidal foreshore became extremely poor.
     As Seto-uchi is surrounded by high mountains on Shikoku and Honshu the air tends to remain stagnant, and the area soon became one of the most air-polluted in the country due to the fumes and smoke from factories and cities.  It was similar story in the case of sea-pollution, since Seto-uchi is so closed.  Damage from red tides began to increase from about 1965.  In 1972, red tides in Harima-nada killed some 14 million yellowtail, amounting to around 7.1 billion yen on the fishery industry.  In 1976 alone, 326 red tides occurred in Seto-uchi.  Also, the water in Tokuyama Bay was found to be polluted by mercury, while Osaka Bay, Harima-nada, Iwakuni, Beppu Bay gave PCB water pollution.
     Citizens demonstrated against the building an oil-refinery in 1966, after which they repeated their movements against landfilling and against the setting up of further industries.  A lawsuit filed in 1970 in Usuki City against an industrial land reclamation plan resulted in victory.  Also, a series of legal actions against landfilling were brought and citizens throughout the region were standing together to fight for their rights in the administration of justice.  
Scientists in the area began holding an annual symposium from 1972, and simultaneously the JSA committee of Seto-uchi was established to make known their views on how to preserve the environment in Seto-uchi.  Since then the symposium is called Seto-uchi Symposium (shown below), for which both the JSA committee of Seto-uchi and the peoplesf alliance for protecting Seto-uchifs environment have basically been responsible.  The former analyzes all the situation and proposes the strategy for its realization, while the latter organizes different citizensf movement. Therefore both the organizations have been quite cooperative.

Activities:
Heading the voices of scientists and the local citizens, the central government began to take action to protect Seto-uchi.  Seto-uchi Environment Conservation Temporal Measures Law was passed in 1973, which is somewhat effective in delaying further pollution in Seto-uchi.  The movements to urge the government to stop the reclamation projects to recover the environment had been strongly carried out across the country.  Consequently, Seto-uchi Environment Conservation Special Measure Law was passed in 1978, providing further possibility to protect the Seto-uchifs environment in combination with the related laws.  
     In the symposia in the 1980s, discussed were a number of proposals to overcome the destroyed environment, e.g. reclamation (#10), revision of the Seto-uchi law for aiming at more sustainable development (#11), water problems (#12), and local problems (techopolis #13, Shikoku and Chugoku problems #14-16, evacuation of industries #17).  From the 1990s, they have discussed the way of sustainable development that was stimulated by the Rio Summit of Sustainable Development in 1992.  Namely, citizens were interested in how we could realize sustainable development in Seto-uchi, and they therefore visited and investigated a number of sustainable spots, e.g. formers, industries, and social workers.

Setou-chi Symposium:
                                    
No        Theme                    Year        Place    
1        Development and pollution in Seto-uchi        1972        Takamatsu      
2        ditto                    1973        Yamaguchi      
3        ditto                    1974        Hiroshima    
4        ditto                    1975        Kobe    
5        Combinat's disaster and environement        1975        Okayama    
6        Reclamation and local society            1977        Oita    
7        Resuscitation of Seto-uchi by citizens        1978        Matsuyama      
8        Seto-uchifs development and citizens' life        1979        Takamatsu
9        Democratic development of Seto-uchi        1980        Yamaguchi
10        Seto-uchi and Osaka Bay            1981        Osaka    
11        Resuscitation of Seto-uchi            1982        Hiroshima    
12        ditto                    1983        Okayama    
13        ditto                    1984        Oita    
14        Creation of Seto-uchifs environment        1985        Matsuyama
15        Nature and culture in Seto-uchi            1986        Osaka    
16        Towards Seto-uchifs rehabilitation        1987        Sakaide    
17        ditto                    1989        Yamaguchi
18        Seto-uchi in the 21st century            1990        Hiroshima    
19        ditto                    1992        Oita    
20        ditto                    1993        Okayama    
21        ditto (Re-examination of Seto-uchi)        1995        Matsuyama
22        ditto (Role of Seto-uchi Law for 25 years)            1997        Osaka    
23        ditto                    1998        Takamatsu
24        ditto                    2000        Oita    
25        Preservation and of resuscitation of Seto-uchi    2002        Yamaguchi