I only posted this because I found it a bit ironic...in the last 2 weeks I have heard of Japan eradicating foreign animals one story old and now this. Somewhere around 2000 I read an article stating it was illegal to catch and release Black Bass when fishing. Not sure where Japan stands on this issue now but I enjoy fishing and don't want to kill every catch!

Anyway here is the newest article:

"TOKYO —

Recently, NHK ran a “News Watch 9” item on the eradication of goats and lizards on Chichijima Island in the Ogasawara group, far to the south of Tokyo. Apparently the animals are both foreign introduced species and over many years they have caused substantial environmental damage—to the extent that the lizard is killing off local butterflies and other insects at a rate which is endangering the ability for nature to cross-pollinate island plants.

While trying to protect the local flora and fauna is an admirable pursuit, what was striking during the NHK program was the repetitive mention of the exterminators’ role to “remove these foreign species“—with the emphasis on the Carolina lizard in particular. Although the commentator didn’t say WHO introduced the lizard, given its obvious name, the audience would have to imagine it was the Americans while they administered the territory.

So that got me to thinking. Believing that NHK is fundamentally a political organization, when you hear a seemingly innocuous message repeated to the point of it becoming a rant, you can’t help thinking: “So, who is this piece of propaganda serving?”

And although you may think it’s a stretch, I think the answer may possibly be found in Japan’s four to five island border disputes to the north, west, and south of the main
islands.

You’ve no doubt heard about Japan’s disputed border islands in the news on a regular basis. They’re a great reason for the rightists to get out in their trucks and decry the Russians, Chinese, and Americans. There are the disputed Kuril Islands to the north of Hokkaido, where Japan wants three islands back from Russia; the Senkakus to the far south, near Taiwan; and the Takeshimas to the west, near Korea.

In most cases, these islands are uninhabited and often not much bigger than rocks—with very little economic value above water. But what’s underneath is of vital importance to Japan. The Senkakus in particular provide Japan with the right to claim a huge territorial zone that includes potentially rich oil deposits in the East China Sea.

The reason why Japan is even having these disputes goes back into history. After the Meiji Restoration in the mid-1800s, the Japanese went on a crash course to modernize themselves. One thing they took a lot of interest in was the techniques used by other world powers to create and establish colonies. Back then, and this is my simplification of some complex law, if an island was inhabited and administered, then it belonged to whichever country was administering it. If the island was uninhabited, however, then the real owners became those who claimed sovereignty first, and had the where-with-all to defend it for an acceptable period of time.

This led to the Japanese government embarking on a number of military adventures and colonization programs to move populations into areas that might otherwise be disputed. They also created elaborate histories and claims of discovery and thus ownership of far-flung islands.

A classic case of the thinking at the time was Japan’s rapid and massive colonization of Hokkaido in the face of fears that Russia might beat them to it. Any Ainu resistance to being overrun was quickly dealt with, they were then forced into a repressive asset and cultural
management program. As a result, their rights were effectively removed and their culture almost destroyed. Of course, none of this was unusual for that era, and the motto “Might is right” was practiced everywhere.

After an overzealous adoption of the colonization construct led to the disaster of WWII, and after its defeat, Japan was required by the American victors to give up most of its non-core possessions and had its territory defined as the main island group plus an envelope encompassing the Ryukyus and Yaeyamas to the south (although under U.S. administration). The idea was that Japan could then negotiate for any other smaller islands on a case-by-case basis with its neighbors—something which has turned out to take a few more generations yet to resolve.

Which brings us back to the Ogasawara islands. Several months ago a local minister here in Tokyo, Rev Ken Joseph Jr, who is familiar to many readers as the person behind the JHELP disaster relief organization, was invited by some Ogasawara people to visit and investigate their claims that rather than being Japanese, they are of American and European lineage, have lived in the Ogasawaras much longer than the Japanese population, and are now being
discriminated against by the Japanese government.

While this would be a strange tale—Western settlers in Japanese territory several hundred years ago when Japan was supposed to be closed to all foreign contact other than the
Dutch and Chinese traders, the tale of present-day discrimination is not surprising at all. After all, the government only removed its own discriminatory control of Ainu assets in 1997, after most of them had seen their tribal identity lost over 100 very tough years.

Anyway, Rev Joseph traveled to the Ogasawaras and came back with a story of European whalers then a colonist ship landing in the Ogasawaras in the early 1800s, indeed, long before the Japanese settled the place, and the sailors set up a small township called Port Lloyd on Chichijima—then called Peel Island.

The Ogasawara island chain is about 1,000 km south of Tokyo and was considered remote enough that even though the Japanese knew of its existence in the 17th century (and possibly earlier according to Japanese claims), they did not see fit to do anything with the islands until the Meiji Restoration, by which time they had been claimed first by the British in
1827, then subsequently through a $50 land purchase by Commodore Matthew Perry (of Black Ship fame) by the Americans around 1853. In between these two dates, in 1830, a small group led by Nathaniel Savory, an American from Massachussetts, settled Chichijima Island. They consisted of several Europeans, 15 or so Hawaiian islanders, and not a Japanese person in sight.

The fact that there were non-Japanese living in the Ogasawaras well before the Japanese arrived with their thousands of colonists in the late 19th century could potentially create a sticky situation, should anyone care to note that according to the laws at the time, land masses which were not uninhabited were supposed to remain the possession of whomever was administering the territory. Japan could say that no one was administering the islands,
which technically is true since the locals didn’t want outside interference.

However, looking at the history books, the British did attempt to write up a set of laws for the islands and the local residents did fly the British flag in Chichijima—showing that they considered themselves British subjects. The Americans went even further in establishing a legal claim when Perry bought land from Savory—establishing that the commodore recognized his ownership, and Perry subsequently appointed Savory as the local governor.
Further, the community at that time adopted a constitution—which should have proven that they were properly administered.

Luckily for Japan, the British renounced their claim to the Bonins in 1861 as part of a larger deal for a Japanese alliance, while the Americans decided in 1968 to return the territory, also as probable “payment” for loyalty in U.S. military and political endeavors elsewhere in the region. Unfortunately, no one thought to ask the original settler descendants on Chichijima Island what they thought of the proceedings.

So it is with these thoughts in mind, and particularly with the assimilation efforts of Tokyo to deal with other “ill-fitting” cultures (such as the Ainu and to a lesser extent the Ryukus), that I believe the NHK program was a subtle effort to shape public opinion about eradicating
literally and figuratively anything foreign in the Ogasawaras that might interfere with claims on the island chain in the future. Although they were talking about troublesome lizards, one wonders if the descendants of the original settlers are not seen as being equally annoying
and troublesome.
Terrie Lloyd writes a weekly newsletter for entrepreneurs and business people about business and political opportunities in Japan. You can find the newsletter at japaninc.com."

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