PEOPLE AND WILDLIFE

`Islands and Extinction`

Islands experience greater extinction rates than continental areas do. Random events that can lead to the extinction of small, isolated populations are more common on islands. In addition, those same taxa are susceptible to humanity’s destructive habits. In recent centuries mankind had caused the extinction of several endemic species in Japan, initially through hunting, then more particularly through habitat destruction and, most recently, through the introduction of alien predators and competitors. The Ministry of Environment’s recent publication, the Red Data Book of Japan, is a saddening catalogue of pending biological disaster, for it reveals that 36 percent of all mammal taxa, 18 percent of reptiles, 19 percent of birds, 32 percent of amphibians and 24 percent of freshwater fish are Extinct, Endangered, Vulnerable, Rare or Localized. That around one-quarter of all Japan’s vertebrate populations are at risk is an all too common outcome of economic development, as seen both here and around the world, especially during the latter half of the 20th century.

Among others, the Japanese populations of Eurasian Otter and Grey Wolf have already been hunted to extinction (see p. 262), but these are by no means isolated cases.

Brown Bear, with an estimated population of fewer than 2,000 individuals in Hokkaidō, has been hunted at an unsustainable rate, scientifically sampled unsustainably, and its habitat has been greatly reduced. Tinned Brown Bear meat can even be found on sale at tourist spots in east Hokkaidō. Extinction is perhaps only a few decades away for the species. Asiatic Black Bears, Japanese Serow, even Japanese Macaques, are similarly under enormous hunting pressure, primarily because any conflict between people and wildlife is seen as best remedied by eliminating the species said to be causing the problem.

Compounding the stress caused by habitat loss, the introduction of alien species has also had a serious impact. The craze for pets, particularly exotic species, combined with a lack of experience in their care and welfare, has led to many being abandoned. This exacerbates the problems faced by wild populations of native species. Abandoned exotics can have disturbing ecological impacts, particularly if these are predatory snakes or, as in one river near Tōkyō, predatory fish in the form of piranhas. The dangers of such releases are enormous. Even more dangerous is the uninformed deliberate introduction of alien species, such as Small Asian Mongoose, American Mink, North American Raccoon, Largemouth ‘black’ Bass and Bluegill, without thought for their impacts on native species and long-term ecological consequences.

`Escaped or released alien species such as American Mink (left) and North American Raccoon (right) have spread widely causing considerable damage and long-term ecological consequences [BOTH` `IiM].`

Witness to the fact that there is a mismatch between the image of the Japanese as having nature (albeit simplified and idealized) as part of their cultural identity and the stark reality that, during forays into the countryside, one is far more likely to bump into a dozen fishermen or hunters, butterfly- or beetle-collectors than to meet a single naturalist armed with binoculars or hand lens. Furthermore, the most visibly nature-oriented visitors to the countryside these days are photographers and, with some exceptions, they seem driven more by a desire for images than for knowledge and understanding of their wildlife subjects. The current emphasis lies in nature to be exploited. Do Japanese people really love nature, as we are led to believe? Indeed, they do share a deep, powerfully cultural empathy with the symbols of nature in Japan, and for some the spirit of Japan is in nature. In the modern world, however, such empathy with nature seems of no more practical value than an intrinsic religious or philosophical belief in human goodness. Is there in fact a fundamental environmental commitment? Indeed, there is, but one must delve back into ancient Japan to find that commitment. The Japanese people believed that all natural landscapes, including the sun, the mountains and the fertile lowlands, were created and populated by deities known as kami. Kami are emblematic of ‘nodes’ or ‘concentrations’ of spirit associated with what we see as physical objects, whereas spirit itself is continuous, indestructible, and cannot be differentiated. This is at the root of the problem; because spirit has these qualities, it does not matter if you destroy any of its physical representations, the spirit just flows into something else. You want to chop down a tree – fine, propitiate the local ‘knot’ of spirit associated with the tree and then cut it down. Its spirit will just flow into something else. The belief in a continuous spirit world denies the uniqueness of individual natural objects, such as trees or whales, and of individual natural categories (species, landscapes). Furthermore, they believed that the will of these kami controlled the cultural domain. People therefore provided shrines and made offerings to the kami in order to placate their reckless domination. From this perspective, culture lay in the hands of nature, not vice versa. Understanding this concept of nature as superior to culture helps to explain the true Japanese geographical concept of landscape, rather than the concept absorbed as western sciences came to permeate Japan. While a traditional perspective thus promotes Japan as being a nation of ‘nature-loving’ people, this is in strong contrast to the changing reality of modern life with its anthropocentric hierarchical ideology. This contrast deserves much closer attention and analysis.

Although blessed with an enviable diversity of land forms, habitats and wildlife, Japan is in the unenviable position of being poised on the brink of losing a large proportion of its natural riches, particularly that proportion which distinguishes it so markedly from other regions of the world. The single-minded post-war pursuit of a larger gross national product has sacrificed the natural environment and gross national happiness. The human influence on the landscape is a powerful one. Some habitats, particularly wetlands, are now in very short supply or seriously endangered, many of them having been destroyed for ‘development’ and many of those remaining not being protected.

Extinctions in Japan are set to escalate over the next few decades. A century hence, naturalists reflecting on the Japan of their recent past may contemplate a natural fauna that was once very much richer, unless attitudes and actions change quickly. Evidence for such change is now apparent – in the requirement for environmental-impact assessments, in the spread of nature schools, in the protection of wetlands of international significance (Ramsar Sites), and in the attention given to such issues in the media.