January 16, 2002

Garden Behind the Walls

Few words have resonated in the American mind like the word Okinawa. It was the bloodiest battle in U.S. history, with 48,000 men killed and wounded. It wiped out anywhere from a third to one-half of the Okinawa populace. It made Hiroshima and Nagasaki, in the minds of U.S. military planners, a foregone conclusion. It marked, for all intents and purposes, the end of World War II.

What few Americans have ever understood about Okinawa, however, is that it is not, and has never been, "Japan." When the Japanese military came to the pacific, subtropical Ryukyu archipelago, they came as intruders. Military rule by the Imperial Army brought mass murder and atrocities directed at the Okinawa people themselves. Linguistically distinct, historically separate, and geographically distant from mainland Japan, the Imperial Army arrived on Okinawa as an invading force–and so it has been remembered. The legacy of the Okinawa people is the legacy of innocents pinned between the opposing interests of giants.

Almost sixty years later, Okinawa marks a battleground of a different sort. Since 1973, when the islands were returned to Japan and began to function as a regular member of the body politic, Okinawa has taken more and more control over its own affairs. Neither Japanese nor American military personnel are allowed to wear their uniforms off base. Marine suspects in a rape case were detained and are scheduled for trial under local law, not under U.S. martial law. Okinawa keeps a significant amount of the money used to maintain U.S. military bases for its own use. And when portions of the land controlled by the U.S. Department of Defense are returned to Okinawa, that land is immediately converted into private land, sold, and developed.

What seems like a good thing–rule of local areas by local people–has not worked out to the benefit of the incredibly diverse and unique Okinawa ecosystems. What seems like a bad thing–military control of foreign territory–has in fact acted as the most responsible, significant, and admirable case of land stewardship in Japan’s history.

Simply put, developmental pressure to build high-rise hotels and to market Okinawa’s beaches has sacrificed all but the most casual efforts at resource management. Pryer’s Woodpecker, an island endemic that exists in small numbers amidst the older forest cover within the Yanbaru region, faces extinction due to continued logging. The Okinawa Rail, unknown to science before 1983, winds up as roadkill from tourist vehicles speeding along newly paved roads that slice right through its roosting habitat. Endemic beetles are mercilessly poached, with hunters going so far as to fell entire trees late at night, split the trunks and take out the beetles. Butterflies are "collected" in the name of amateurs whose only scientific interest is arithmetic: how many can I pin onto my display case? Massive conversion of forest to pineapple plantations has killed off large sections of pristine reef as red earth is washed off by seasonal rains into streams, which deposit the suffocating soil onto the fragile coral beds.

Significantly, few if any of these depredations occur on the portion of Okinawa still controlled by the U.S. Department of Defense, which manages the northern sector of the island as its Jungle Warfare Training Center. Unlogged and unmolested for almost sixty years, this 80,000-acre tract has become a unique preserve amidst which all of Okinawa’s forest organisms continue to thrive. It is no exaggeration to say that within this treasure trove there are almost certainly organisms yet unknown to science. Moreover, in keeping with the department’s general policy of integrating land stewardship into the management of its significant holdings, there is significant potential for a partnership with the Okinawa government for the continued maintenance, preservation, and restoration of this habitat.

In a private sector economy that depends exclusively on tourism, the shift to nature-based recreation has great potential in Okinawa. Small communities near the Yanbaru forest have already begun to take steps in this direction: Higashi-son has built a boardwalk for its expansive mangrove forest, and is considering an interpretive center to highlight the uniqueness of the region’s flora and fauna.

Downtown Naha, which in itself resembles the sprawl and concrete that characterizes many Japanese cities, possesses a Ramsar site smack in the middle of downtown: Manko-en mudflat provides critical habitat to migrant and wintering shorebirds, and qualifies as one of the premier birding spots in Japan. Blessed with abundant and varied resources, Okinawa alone has tremendous potential to nurture those resources that are now under siege. As steward of its Yanbaru tract, the Department of Defense stands as a natural ally for Okinawans who see more value in their island than its simple worth converted into commercial real estate.

Combined with its external resources Okinawa has the potential to become a powerhouse destination. An entire island chain, beginning with Amami-oshima to the north–home to the Amami Woodcock and Lidth’s jay–and running almost to Taiwan, makes up the entirety of the Ryukyus. Southernmost destinations such as Ishigaki, Iriomote, and Yonaguni provide the most varied, most pristine, and least disturbed habitats in Japan. Ishigaki, although built up relative to neighboring Iriomote, provides vast tidal mudflats and inland wetlands that attract astonishing varieties of shorebirds. Iriomote boasts the last member of the cat family described to science, the Iriomote Wildcat, as well as the bulk of endemic Ryukyu Serpent Eagles–a spectacular raptor that perches photogenically atop the utility poles. Nearby Yonaguni is the premier spot for vagrants, and Zamami Island hosts calving Humpback whales.

Over the course a thousand years, the Ryukyus have had their share of conflict. Fermata hopes that in the 21^st Century, the people who live in this beautiful and remote area will be able to reap the benefits of its superb wildlife resources.

Trip du Jour, January 16, 2002
Garden Behind the Walls
by Seth Davidson

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