Airbase plans violate a US preservation act as Henoko is the natural habitat of the endangered dugong
Anthony Rowley, Business Times 14 Dec 09;
AMID signs that the Japanese government may be preparing to compromise on its tough stand against relocation of a US Marine air base within Okinawa, some protesters against a planned new facility there are pinning their hopes on a humble mammal known as the 'dugong' to spare their idyllic coastline from destruction by the move.
They are looking to the San Francisco Federal Court to confirm a preliminary ruling that plans to construct a new US airbase in the Henoko area of Okinawa are 'illegal'.
The ruling, in January 2008, was that the plans violate the US National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) because Henoko is the natural habitat of one of Japan's 'cultural assets' - the dugong, which is also classified as an 'endangered species' in the US.
This rather bizarre development comes at a time when US and Japanese governments have hit a deadlock in negotiations over where to site a replacement facility for the Futenma air base in Okinawa, which is scheduled to close by 2014.
In 2006, the US administration of president George W Bush and the then Liberal Democratic Party-led government in Japan agreed to relocate the Futenma base to Henoko in Northern Okinawa as part of a wider 'road' map for the future deployment of US forces in the Asia-Pacific region.
But after current Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama's Democratic Party of Japan swept to power in a landslide election victory in August, Mr Hatoyama insisted that negotiations must be reopened on the move to ease the burden on Okinawa of playing host to thousands of US Marines and other forces.
The prime minister's stand earned him approval by many in Okinawa but it also strained ties with the Obama administration quite severely and threw into question the future of US-Japan security ties and political relations.
This week, Japan's Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada said that talks between the US and Japan over the relocation of Futenma could be shelved because of the impact on bilateral ties at a time when broader negotiations aimed at strengthening the alliance are underway, following President Barack Obama's recent visit here.
Mr Hatoyama has said meanwhile that he will present proposals on the Futenma issue to Mr Obama when the two leaders meet at the Copenhagen climate summit this week. He has not elaborated on the proposals but some speculate that the Japanese government will agree broadly to honour the 2006 agreement.
A spanner could yet be thrown into the works, however, by the Okinawa Dugong Lawsuit being brought by the Japan Environmental Lawyers Foundation and the Centre for Biological Diversity in the US, with the support of a host of other environmental bodies including the World Wide Fund for Nature and Greenpeace.
Under its ruling last year, the San Francisco Federal Court ruled that the US Defense Department had failed to adhere to requirements of the NHPA with regard to necessary consultations over the Henoko Plan and its impact on the local environment.
This was the first case of the US law being applied 'extra-territorially', one of the principal lawyers involved in the suit, Takaaki Kagohashi, told the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan last week.
The ruling in effect acknowledges the 'illegality' of the plan to build a US Marine air base at Henoko and means that the Japanese government, which is responsible for building the new facility under the 2006 agreement, 'cannot begin construction because the US military cannot issue permission'.
'Even if such permission is issued, there is a strong possibility that an application for permission to be suspended will be granted by the US Federal court,' Mr Kagohashi added. The decision is subject to a final ruling by the Federal court, however, and it is possible that the US Defense Department could lodge an appeal before the Supreme Court.
The humble dugong arouses strong passions in Okinawa which is known as the 'Galapagos of the East' because of its rich and unique biological diversity. Okinawan tradition holds that spirits - human and otherwise - can inhabit the dugong, and even that the mammal is a god itself. It can bring great blessings or disasters, according to the way it is treated.
Worldwide, there are said to be only some 50 dugong surviving, with the only ones in Asia outside of Okinawa (where there are said to be only 10) being found at Australia's Great Barrier Reef and in the Philippines.
In a letter to Mr Obama earlier this month from the Centre for Biological Diversity calling for cancellation of the military base expansion at Henoko, the centre's conservation director, Peter Galvin, said that the project would 'destroy some of the best remaining habitat for the highly endangered Okinawa dugong, one of the rarest mammal populations in the world'.
