Construction of a wide-area backbone forest road in Amami Oshima - Struggle between development and environmental protection in the 1990s

Construction of a wide-area backbone forest road in Amami Oshima - Struggle between development and environmental protection in the 1990s

In Japan in the 1990s, the balance between regional development and nature conservation was a major issue. Amami Oshima Island, in particular, was known as a treasure house of subtropical biodiversity along with Okinawa, and was home to many endemic species. The Amami rabbit and the Japanese lesser pygmy shrew were symbolic of this, and were designated as endangered species in the Red Data Book of the Ministry of the Environment from early on. On the other hand, the development of transportation infrastructure on the island was lagging behind, and the construction of a wide-area trunk forest road was planned to promote tourism and improve the lives of local residents.

The original plan was to cut a 19-kilometer-long road, but it was discovered that the target area was an important habitat for rare species. As a result of the environmental impact assessment, it was pointed out that there was a high risk of nature destruction. Therefore, a shift was made from conventional development-type construction to "environmentally friendly construction methods," such as avoiding the cutting of the road surface as much as possible, not installing ditches, and using "embankment construction methods" to avoid concrete retaining walls.

The background to this change was the trend toward biodiversity conservation that grew in Japan and abroad in the 1990s, when the Convention on Biological Diversity, adopted at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, made the protection of rare species and ecosystems an international issue and prompted the introduction of environmental assessments for development projects in Japan as well. Amami Oshima Island is a symbolic case of this trend, and the policy moved in the direction of utilizing the island's nature while preserving it as a "local resource.

This case marked the beginning of a shift in local economic development from simply aiming to expand infrastructure to a design based on coexistence with nature. At the same time, it reflected the challenge facing Japanese society as a whole: how to strike a balance between development and conservation in order to pass on the rich ecosystem of Amami Oshima Island to the future.