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May 7, 2000 Yatsu-Higata Mudflats, Narashino City, Chiba Prefecture“For the birdlife, Yatsu is not simply a crumb tossed them by the Narashino city council.”
The bird is, like every wild animal, a survival machine. The scope of its resourcefulness, tenacity, intelligence and adaptability is evident enough in the wild. But to see raw, untreated nature battle and succeed against human encroachment in one of the world’s most polluted, ravaged, concrete-covered habitats qualifies as one of the greatest natural spectacles on the face of the earth. And if you’re a business visitor in Tokyo with an afternoon free, or a longer term resident who’s sick of the city, it’s less than forty minutes from Tokyo Station. Less than ten percent of Tokyo Bay’s* original shoreline remains. What were once sand beaches and homes to a plethora of plant, animal, bird, freshwater and marine life have been replaced by mud and cement in a process called reclamation. This shamelessly audacious euphemism should be given an award! It not only obscures what the word represents, it blames the victim for the crime. Reclaim means, of course, to take back what was originally yours. Tokyo Bay landfill reclamation has meant the destruction of 90% of animal and plant habitat–habitat that was never human, and hence not theirs to reclaim–in order to build wharves, office buildings, freeways, train lines, housing subdivisions, garbage dumps and The Mickey amusement parks. If trees had standing, or if birds could file suit… Photos from the Yatsu-Higata Bird Center show the progressive "reclamation," or better put, the usurpation, of the bay area over the last thirty years. (photos: "TB photos," "TB landfill") Yatsu itself, which was once open shoreline, now sits a full kilometer inland, surrounded on all sides by mega-super-ultra-hyper freeway, concrete wharves, broad asphalt roads, offices and apartment buildings as far as the eye can see. Of course the eye, walled up on all sides by so much concrete and steel, can’t see very far at all. The mudflat’s lifeline consists of two concrete channels, one at each end of the 100-acre tideland, that span the one-kilometer distance to the open bay. As the tide comes in, the mudflat fills with about three feet of water. At ebb tide it is a flat, muddy area filled with gourmet lugworms, shellfish, crabs and other marine life on which resident and migrating birds subsist. The history of this small avian fiefdom is as colorful as the birds that dig in its mud. Originally the open shoreline was the site for a salt manufacturing operation. A record typhoon put period to that phase of its history. In 1924, Yatsu became a seaside recreation area, popular for fishing and clamdigging. It later developed into a full-scale cheeseball amusement park, bankrupted by the appearance of Disney in 1982. Sometime during the amusement park phase it also became a major unofficial dump for the area. The two phases of the Keiyo Harbor reclamation project cemented plans to fill in the bay, beginning in the 1960’s. Eight people petitioned the Narashino* city council in 1971 to stop the bay reclamation project. They were patted on the head, smiled at benignly, and construction proceeded apace. The petitioners continued to oppose construction under the auspices of a tidelands conservation league, and after the entirety of western Chiba was paved over, and an inestimable variety of marine and avian wildlife completely annihilated, government authorities began to seriously consider the environmentalists’ concerns. Without even the slightest
intimation of irony, city promotional materials for the mudflats now tout it as a showcase for the "coexistence" of urban and natural life. The result of those original eight featherless bipeds who stood up and defended the rights of the feathered ones is Yatsu-Higata, a manmade, perfectly square tideland that hosts more than a hundred species of resident and migrating shorebirds, and that laughs brassily in the face of the surrounding urban environment. Once you enter this preserve, which is partially walled off from the freeway with trees, you become privy to some very up-close and personal views of birds. We saw plovers, Little Terns, gulls, Ruddy Turnstones, curlews, Whimbrels , several varieties of ducks, egrets, and a bird so beautiful that he even has a sign–200 feet in front of which he was actually posing–the Black-bellied Plover. Standing at the railings you quickly fall into the mental lapse that overtakes every human who has ever contemplated nature, and you realize that the greatest, most powerful word we have to describe its majesty–the word "beauty"–is hopelessly outstripped by the grandeur and mystery of the thing it seeks to describe. For the birdlife, Yatsu is not simply a crumb tossed them by the Narashino city council. It is an internationally important stopover, and in many cases the only stopping point, for migratory species winging their way home to Siberia, or hurrying on to their warm winter retreats in Australia, Southeast Asia and the South Pacific. It’s the avian equivalent of the Hard Rock Café–a place to tank up, fill your belly, and check out the local lugworms. If you’re a plover, it’s even more of a hot spot: Yatsu estimates that 2.5% of the entire world plover population passes through this mudflat. Anyone with a few free hours in Tokyo can easily catch the train out to Yatsu and be treated not only to a break from the terminal ugliness of the city, but even be rewarded with the occasional spectacular find. Last year thousands of nature watchers showed up to look at a Ross’s Gull that had strayed far off course and was probably just as confused in Yatsu as the average American tourist trying to figure out the Tokyo subway system. During Fermata’s first visit to Yatsu seven years ago, an Asiatic Dowitcher made a cameo appearance, to the wonder and excitement of the thousands and thousands of birdwatchers who frequent this facility.
Ironically, Yatsu doesn’t know how many thousands actually come through the park. The birdwatching center gets about 45,000 paying visitors per year. At only two dollars per person, this doesn’t even begin to offset the roughly one million dollars that Narashino City pays to maintain the facility. A random look at the number of people outside with scopes and binoculars easily suggested that ten times more people were outside than in. In common with other public nature centers, the administration of Yatsu insists that making the center profitable is not part of the facility’s mandate. The city views it simply as a cost, and pretends not to be concerned with making ends meet. On the other hand, real economic pressures currently threaten Yatsu and other nature centers like it. The drawn out recession has squeezed public budgets dry, and the first hogs at the trough–the general contracting cartel–don’t leave much for the dowitchers and gulls. Yatsu is admittedly under severe budgetary strain, but measures to analyze the total quantity of park users and come up with revenue producing schemes are not even nonexistent: their possibility hasn’t even been considered. Although Yatsu has a small, tastefully done gift shop, the marketing aspects of birdwatching have clearly received low priority from the facility designers. Of course nature centers run by biologists and city employees are not wired for making money, and that’s one of the ways that Fermata can help. We look at the tourist traffic, at the resource, and at the low-impact possibilities for turning acres of red ink into acres of black. Narashino City’s modern sewage system has also put pressure on the tideland area. Originally, toilets in the vicinity were flushed with fresh water into open channels. This created large amounts of water that filtered into Yatsu as freshwater runoff, and was largely responsible for the excellent mix of freshwater and brine, conducive to so many of the creatures that spawn and grow in the mud. The closed sewer lines, however, have greatly reduced the freshwater flow, causing the mudflat’s salinity to gradually rise. If unchecked it will eventually threaten the entirety of this self-contained ecosystem. A final challenge is bluegreen algae. In and of themselves, they are excellent sources of oxygen for the mudflat, and contribute to the fecundity of the marine life there. During the hot summer months, however, ebb tide completely dries the mudflat, and the scorching sun bakes the algae onto the surface of the mud. The result for the marine creatures living underneath is the same as if someone stuck a pillow over your mouth and sat on it: they suffocate.
The operations side of Yatsu is awesome. Materials are conveniently arranged at every conceivable point, comprehensive reference works on the birds of Asia are available, and the one full-time guide who helped me identify an Australasian Curlew had the encyclopedic knowledge of a first-rate field biologist. The observation center is so clean that you’re almost afraid to walk on the floor, and a small secluded corner has been set up so that you can quaff coffee while looking in on a tiny grassy marsh set up against a giant plate-glass window. English language materials are available for the asking. Bird checklists with English names are, too. The center has high-powered spotting scopes for excellent viewing. If you’re in Tokyo and want to see birds, this is the place. Getting there:By carAuto access to Yatsu is hopelessly complex, and once you’re there, there’s no place to park because the facility only has about one hundred spaces. If you’re deadset on it, though, take Highway 357 from Tokyo. In Minami Funabashi, shortly past the station, you will come to the Wakamatsu Intersection. That’s the far corner of Yatsu, so continue straight for about another kilometer and the park entrance will be on your left. By trainIt’s sooooo easy. From Tokyo Station take the Keiyo Line; it’s the same train that takes you to Disneyland. Get off at Minami Funabashi Station, about twenty minutes from Tokyo. Exit and follow the signs to Yatsu Higata Tideland Park. The signs are all in Japaneseso if you’re unsure ask one of the station employees. The corner entrance to the park is less than ten minutes from Minami Funabashi Station. Trip du Jour, May 7, 2000
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