Ogasawara Airport Construction and the Nature Conservation Debate: Between Sky Paradise and Politics, March 1996

Ogasawara Airport Construction and the Nature Conservation Debate: Between Sky Paradise and Politics, March 1996
In Japan in the 1990s, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government put forward a plan to build an airport on the Ogasawara Islands' Brother Island, as part of its efforts to revitalize the region and promote tourism after the bursting of the bubble economy. The purpose was to promote tourism and secure emergency medical transportation, and the plan was to "eliminate isolation" of the islands, but the Environment Agency strongly opposed the plan on the grounds that it would destroy the habitat of rare species. The elder brother island has many endemic species, such as the akagashi crow pigeon and the ogasawara flying fox, and logging and noise caused by the construction of the runway were said to threaten the ecosystem. The Tokyo Metropolitan Government appealed for the right to life and regional development, while the Environment Agency insisted on the obligation to protect the nature shared by the people, and the conflict between the two became symbolic of the values of "development o
r protection." In 1997, the Environment Agency officially announced its opposition and the plan was frozen, but alternative proposals continued to be discussed. This issue was the first test of Japan's search for sustainable development in the postwar period, between remote island policy and environmental administration, and posed the question to society of whether "convenience" or "natural tranquility" should be preserved for the future.