The Tidal Basin: A Dialogue on the Sanbanse Landfill, 2001

The Tidal Basin: A Dialogue on the Sanbanse Landfill, 2001

In September 2001, Governor Akiko Domoto announced at a meeting of the Chiba Prefectural Assembly that the Sanbanse landfill plan should be withdrawn. During the period of high economic growth, the tidal flats of Tokyo Bay were reclaimed one after another, and more than 90% of them were lost. Sanbanse was miraculously the last remaining shallow water. The prefectural government initially planned to reclaim 740 hectares, but international attention focused on the importance of tidal flat conservation, and criticism continued even after the plan was revised to a smaller scale. Governor Domoto decided to cancel the project as a fulfillment of his campaign promise in the gubernatorial election, and gathered opinions through a symposium attended by local residents. In the assembly, however, Liberal Democratic Party members strongly opposed the decision, arguing that halting the public works would be a blow to the prefectural economy. In 2001, the financial difficulties that follow
ed the collapse of the bubble economy, criticism of public works projects, and environmental agreements such as the Kyoto Protocol coincided, and values were shifting from development to the environment. The battle over the Sanbanse became an opportunity to go beyond the pros and cons of regional development and to rethink the course of Japanese society as a whole.