Achievements and Future Action

１．All about Seto Inland Sea

The first judgement of Amagasaki air pollution suite became the outstanding one that had admitted the responsibility of the road public corporation. In 2000, Osaka High Court gave first and final judgement exceptionally which led the compromise between the plaintiff and the road public corporation. But basically true solution cannot be realized if we will not find effective measures against the air pollution on road. By the compromise, the road public corporation was obligated to held a continuous talk with residents.
The movement got into the net step. In August it won the Nagoya air pollution trial and reached compromise with the Government.
At least, the clear recognition that natural wetland seashore is highly important was gained as shown in Fujimae (Nagoya), Sanbanse (Tokyo Bay), Yatsu tidalland.
On the other hand, several landfill are now on going, the second stage construction of Kansai Int'l Airport in Osaka Bay, Kobe Airport, South Rokko Island and North of Osaka Port that are all reversing the global consensus.
Waste treatment has been focused on because of newly introduced charged collection of electric appliances.
But in Seto Inland Sea, no solution cannot be seen for landfill of Phenix Plan and the waste treatment on Kuroshima (Hiroshima). In this meaning the forthcoming current solution at Teshima Island is an outstanding gratification. But unwelcomed submission at Naoshima remind us that we should continue watching if secondary pollution will not come out.
For residents and local government' settling future strategy, we need to make use of the lesson that illegal waste disposal had gave severe damage and cost too much.
At the Kobe civil assembly on August 1999, we advocated profitable utilization of bridges and roads pointing out its cost condition in red and the perils of cost burdening by local governments.
This year the cabinet of Prime Minister Koizumi suggested the structural reform such as the way how public corporation should work. In such situation, our opinions were reported in the newspaper.
There remains a subject that Honshu and Shikoku Bridge Highway should bring true profit for the local residents. Also Kobe Airport trial is still on going at Kobe District Court. Strongly related, civil movement and lawyers are pursuing Kobe city governance looking for profit of residents. We have been long criticized the promotion of Kobe Airport construction.
We must recover civil power and look for correct municipal administration to protect the natural environment.

2. Our activities in last year

We held Setouchi Symposium at Yufuin and Nissei-dai on 2nd and 3rd September 2000 with the members of CASA and Setouchi Committee.
On the same September we submitted the public comment which had suggested on amendment of Seto Inland Sea Environment Protection Basic Plan to Ministry of Environment.
In 2001 October, Ms. Sandy Buffet of Nautilus Institute visited the office of Seto-Kan-Ren to discuss Bay-to-Bay Project.
In June we participated in the 26th Japan Pollution Victim Alliance.
Formerly we had negotiated with Seto Inland Sea Protection Office of Agency of Environment, but it changed to be the Closed Sea Measurement Room of Ministry of Environment. After that we expected them to have clearer attitude towards environment protection, but cannot find them to review on development and to understand local actual circumstances.
We should continuously make effort to push them towards changing their way.
Several members of Seto-Kan-Ren visited Tomo-no-Ura, Hiroshima Pref. The historical town established in Edo era is still surviving. The tradition should be reserved as much as possible.
On 22rd and 23rd April, the study meeting was held at Arima Onsen. 13 members were discussing briskly on current condition of Osaka Bay and movement direction, that will continue for the future.
On 20th May, we carried out the beach clean-up project at Fujie Sea Coast, Akashi. More than 20 people had joined.
In Awashima, also another clean-up was held welcoming the representative of Japan Environmental Action Network.
In November the 5th EMECS conference was held in Kobe and Awaji, in which body a member of Seto-Kan-Ren was elected as a committee.
We are making effort to reflect our opinion upon the governmental administration. We received monetary aid from the National Labor Union for which theme were the research of US and Japan environment condition and comparison of protection laws.

Interaction with other groups

We exchanged opinions with US-Japan Foundation and Ise-Bay Protection Movement. Several member of us visited Tomo-no-Ura, Hiroshima pref.

Publication

We issued the Seto-Uchi news 10 times monthly including 2 combined ones. HP is being updated periodically.
We held the new year party in January 2000. Soon after that a new member joined as a staff.
In the year of 2000, 19 new members joined and 6 members (including 1 passed away) had withdrawn. Now cooperative member is 232, group member is 12, supporting member is 6, eternal member is 17, then totaled 267.
In May we received the interview from Mainichi Newspaper and our article was appeared on 30th June morning paper.

3. Further movement direction

Looking around Japan, protection of wetland has been progressed, but limited to Seto Inland Sea, landfills are on going now. Then the Seto Inland Sea Protection Law should be revised. We need to develop the way that specifies piority of environment proteciotn and reflection of residents' opinion. We should ask Ministry of Environment to take up our expectation. River Law had included environmental protection articles, which implied the charged section of Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Traffic made much weigh of residential participation. Not only Ministry of Environment but also other administrations need residential participation.
The Ministry of Environment posted local environment countermeasure investigators from October 2001.