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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 March 2025
Part 3 of a 3 part series
Henoko: The Experts Report and the Future of Okinawa
1. Gavan McCormack, Introduction: The Experts Report and the Future of Okinawa
2. The Okinawa Third Party (Experts) Committee, translated by Sandi Aritza, Report of Okinawa Prefecture's “Third Party Investigation into the Reclamation of Oura Bay” (Main Points)
3. Sakurai Kunitoshi, translated by Gavan McCormack, “To Whom does the Sea Belong? Questions Posed by the Henoko Assessment”
Preface
The environmental assessment system is a public good indispensable for the sustainable development of Japanese society. The environmental assessment on the Futenma Airfield Replacement Facility Works (hereafter: Henoko assessment) was an illegal assessment that negated the value of this public good and to allow it to stand would be to endanger Japan's future. Many assessment specialists, chief among them being former head of the Environmental Assessment Society, Shimazu Yasuo, have said that, whether in terms of procedure or of substance, the Henoko assessment was the worst in the history of assessment in Japan. This study is intended to evaluate Okinawa Defense Bureau's environmental assessment and the approval for reclamation it subsequently issued under the Public Waters Reclamation Act and to raise the question of “To whom does the sea belong?” for the consideration of this Nago meeting of the National Conference on the Japanese Water Environment.
1 This paper is a revised version of my “Asesu seido hokai saseru Henoko asesu/' [The Henoko assessment that causes the assessment system to collapse], Kankyo to kogai, (Tokyo, Iwanami, 2015), vol. 45, no 1.
2 Shimazu Yasuo, “Henoko asesu o sokatsu suru,” Kankyo gijutsu, (Tokyo: Iwanami, 2012), vol. 41 No 5, p. 29.
3 Though officially known as the “Futenma Replacement Facility” (FRF), Okinawans know it as the “New Henoko Base,” not as a replacement. While it would upgrade and completely renew Futenma Airfield, which is difficult to use with complete freedom, it would be a brand new base, designed to last 200 years.
and with its own military port and ammunition storage area.
4 Shimazu, “Henoko asesu o sokatsu suru.”
5 Explanation offered by Sato during negotiations on May 21, 2007 at Naha Defence Facilities Agency.
6 SACO: Special Action Committee on Okinawa, the special joint Japan-US committee set up in the wake of the rape attack by US servicemen on an Okinawan girl to explore ways to adjust and reduce the size of the US bases in Okinawa. It reached its agreement on December 2, 1996.
7 The US and Japanese governments agreed on September 19, 2012 that Osprey flights would not be conducted in helicopter mode over settled districts.
8 “Environmental Review for Basing MV-22 Aircraft at MCAS Futenma and Operating in Japan,” Japanese text here.
9 According to Attachment 10 to the Application for Reclamation Approval, 16.44 million cubic metres were to be provided from the Seto Inland Sea, Moji, Goto, Amakusa, Cape Sata^ Amami Oshima, Tokunoshima, Kunigami and Motobu.
10 “Futenma hikojo daitai shisetsu jigyo ni kakawaru koyu suimen umetate shonin mondai nado ni kansuru chosa hokokusho,” p. 19.
11 Translator note: However, it also ruled that, because of the lapse of time, the right had been extinguished.
12 See here.
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