ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES IN JAPAN: HOTSPOT, RED TIDES, RAINFORESTS

ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES IN JAPAN

Japan is a beautiful country with a lot natural wonders. The postwar economic miracle turned many parts of Japan into a land of development, factories, pavement and concrete rivers. One survey found that only seven percent of Japan’s sandy beaches are “natural.” The others have some artificial structure such as a tetrapods, levees or bank protection or have been altered in some other way by human activity.

Air pollution from power plants results in acid rain; acidification of lakes and reservoirs degrading water quality. There are waste management issues and environmental clean-up in small area of Fukushima after nuclear accident in 2011 is still ; ongoing. [Source: CIA World Factbook]

Japan's coral reefs have been damaged by sedimentation from construction and agricultural activity, and by over-fishing. Environmentalists are working to protect intact reefs around southern islands such as Okinawa, where land development is a threat. [Source: Junior Worldmark Encyclopedia of Physical Geography, Gale Group, Inc., 2003]

International environmental agreements: party to: Antarctic-Environmental Protection, Antarctic-Marine Living Resources, Antarctic Seals, Antarctic Treaty, Biodiversity, Climate Change, Climate Change-Kyoto Protocol, Climate Change-Paris Agreement, Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban, Desertification, Endangered Species, Environmental Modification, Hazardous Wastes, Law of the Sea, Marine Dumping-London Convention, Marine Dumping-London Protocol, Nuclear Test Ban, Ozone Layer Protection, Ship Pollution, Tropical Timber 2006, Wetlands; signed, but not ratified: none of the selected agreements. [Source: CIA World Factbook]

Websites and Sources: Ministry of Environment env.go.jp/en ; National Institute for Environmental Studies nies.go.jp ; Japan for Sustainability japanfs.org ; Wikipedia article on Environmental Issues in Japan Wikipedia ; Japan Environment Association jeas.or.jp ;
Statistical Handbook of Japan stat.go.jp ; Air Pollution in Japan (1964) ncbi.nlm.nih.gov ; Research Institute of Innovative Technology rite.or.jp ; Aozora.or Aozora.or ; ; Google E-Book: Japan in the 21st Century, Environment, Economy and Society (2005) books.google.com/books ;

Japan Environmental Rankings and Statistics

Energy tracker Asia

Japan ranked 16th out of 177 countries in the 2026 Environmental Performance Index (EPI), with an overall score of 63.15 out of 100, compared to top-ranked Estonia, with a score of 74.79. and last place Laos with a score of 21.8. Japan ranked 37th out of 180 countries in the 2024 EPI. The EPI ranks countries on the basis of things like maintaining and improving air and water quality, maximizing biodiversity and cooperating with other countries on environmental problems. Prepared by researchers at Yale and Columbia in cooperation with the World Economic Forum, it is based on 47 indicators across 12 issue categories, and including the number of children with respiratory diseases, fertility rates, water quality, overfishing, emissions of greenhouses gases, and the export of sodium dioxide, a key component of acid rain. [Source: Environmental Performance Index epi.yale.edu ]

Japan scored 54.6 points out of 100 on the Happy Planet Index and ranked 33rd out of the 134 evaluated countries.. Compiled by the British think-tank New Economics Foundation, the index measures people’s well-being and their impact on the environment through data on life satisfaction, life expectancy and the amount of land required to sustain the population and absorb its energy consumption.. happyplanetindex.org/countries]

Carbon dioxide emissions: 960.23 million metric tonnes of CO2 (2023 estimate); from coal and metallurgical coke: 367.144 million metric tonnes of CO2 (2023 estimate); from petroleum and other liquids: 403.042 million metric tonnes of CO2 (2023 estimate); from consumed natural gas: 190.043 million metric tonnes of CO2 (2023 estimate). Methane emissions: energy: 214.7 kilotonnes (2022-2024 estimate); agriculture: 972.8 kilotonnes (2019-2021 estimate); waste: 208.2 kilotonnes (2019-2021 estimate); other: 22.7 kilotonnes (2019-2021 estimate). Particulate matter emissions: 10.5 micrograms per cubic meter (2019 estimate). [Source: CIA World Factbook]

Total renewable water resources: 430 billion cubic meters (2022 estimate). Total water withdrawal: municipal: 13.5 billion cubic meters (2022 estimate); industrial: 13 billion cubic meters (2022 estimate); agricultural: 53 billion cubic meters (2022 estimate).

Waste and recycling: municipal solid waste generated annually: 42.72 million tons (2024 estimate); percent of municipal solid waste recycled: 11.5 percent (2022 estimate). [Source: CIA World Factbook]

Japanese People and the Environment

null
cement river in Japan

The relationship between the Japanese and the environment is full of paradoxes. Their native religion, Shintoism, teaches people to have a deep reverence for nature yet they artificially restructure their Japanese landscape on a grand scale. The Japanese are excellent recyclers but also demand excessive packaging when they buy products. They go through great lengths to save endangered cranes and ibises yet zealously defend their right to eat whales.

Makoto Kurozumi, a professor at Tokyo University who specializes in the history of Japanese thought, believes that compassion for living things has traditionally been one of the most important characteristics of the Japanese people. “The origin of this is a tradition of animism that teaches that everything, including plants and trees, has a spirit. That has cultivated a compassion for all living creatures, in the Japanese,” he said

Takeshi Umehara, the great Japanese anthropologist, observed that the Shinto religion, in which man is regarded as a part of nature, drew from ancient Japan’s “civilization of the forest.” As early as the 17th century the Tokugawa shogunate was involved in reforesting parts of Japan, denuded by development (See Tokugawa Period, History).

Matagi hunters are people who wander through the forests and mountains, making a living from the plants and animals they collect there. Experienced hunters spend more than 100 days a year in the mountains and have maps in their heads. They collect mushrooms in the autumn, kill bears in the winter, pick sasai plants in the spring, catch sweetfish in the summer and know how to protect themselves if attacked by a bear. The last matagi hunters are in their 70s now and they are in danger of becoming extinct.

Destruction of Freshwater Ecosystems in Japan

All but two of Japan's rivers have been dammed or directed into concrete embankments. The number of natural lakes and wetlands has decreased from 230 in the mid-1980s to 210 today.

Rivers, streams and brooks that teamed with life have had their banks lined with concrete in the name of erosion and flood control but mainly to provide work for construction companies. In the case of brooks used to supply water for rice paddies concrete is often selected to widen channels when the job can be done just as effectively with earthen dikes. Among the creatures that are lost are a wide variety of aquatic insects and plankton and the fish, frogs, clams, shrimp that eat them and the kingfishers and egrets that eat them.

The Japanese government has built grand dams, bridges, railways and roads, plus countless smaller projects, that Japan doesn't really need. Cities are full of vacant public buildings and government-funded museums and concert halls that no one uses. In the countryside there are expensive government-funded projects that have been dubbed tunnels and bridges to nowhere. Much of money to pay for the bridges nowhere comes from the postal saving system, pension contributions, bonds and postal life insurance premiums — one of the primary reasons Japan has the highest debt to GDP ratio in the developed world.

Japanese Archipelago — Biodiversity Hotspot

Conservation International lists the Japanese Archipelago as Biodiversity Hotspot. According to to the group: “The islands that make up the Japanese Archipelago stretch from the humid subtropics in the south to the boreal zone in the north, resulting in a wide variety of climates and ecosystems. About a quarter of the vertebrate species occurring in this hotspot are endemic, including the Critically Endangered Okinawa woodpecker. Japan has a relatively high diversity of amphibians as well, with 75 percent being endemic to the islands. Urban development has had some of the most significant effects on the Japanese wilderness, as are introduced exotic species like the Indian grey mongoose, the Siberian weasel, and the large mouthed bass. [Source:Conservation International **]

“VITAL SIGNS Hotspot Original Extent (km²): 373,490; Hotspot Vegetation Remaining (km²): 74,698; Endemic Plant Species: 1,950; Endemic Threatened Birds: 10; Endemic Threatened Mammals: 21; Endemic Threatened Amphibians: 19; Extinct Species†: 7; Human Population Density (people/km²): 336; Area Protected (km²): 62,025; Area Protected (km²) in Categories I-IV*: 21,918. †Recorded extinctions since 1500. *Categories I-IV afford higher levels of protection.

“Encompassing more than 3,000 islands of the Japanese Archipelago, this hotspot includes the land area of the nation of Japan (roughly 370,000 km²). In addition to the four main islands – Hokkaido, Honshu, Shikoku and Kyushu – Japan includes a number of smaller island groups, including the Ogasawara-shoto (the Bonin Islands and Iwo or Volcano Islands), Daito-shoto, Nansei-shoto (Ryukyu and Satsun Islands) and the Izu-shoto. Japan is located at the intersection of three of the Earth’s tectonic plates, and the slippage of these plates generates forces that result in numerous volcanoes, hot springs, mountains and earthquakes.

“Japan stretches from around 22°N to about 46°N latitude, from the humid subtropics in the south to a temperate zone in the north. This latitudinal range, and the country’s mountainous terrain (about 73 percent of Japan is mountainous, the highest point being the 3,776-meter Mt. Fujiyama) contribute to Japan’s widely varying climate. While the central mountain area of Honshu is one of the snowiest regions on Earth, the Pacific side of Japan is remarkably dry. Yaku-shima, just south of the southern tip of Kyushu, is one of the wettest places on Earth, with annual rainfall of over 5,000 millimeters in some places.

“Japan’s vegetation ranges from boreal mixed forests of Abies (fir), Picea (spruce) and Pinus (pines) on Hokkaido (and at high elevations in Honshu and Shikoku) to subtropical broadleaf evergreen forests and mangrove swamps in the south. High elevations on Honshu and Shikoku support alpine vegetation, while subalpine vegetation and natural beech forests are distributed throughout the region. The subtropical island chains in the south of Japan support a flora and fauna different from that of the main islands and hold many endemic species.

Red Tides and Giant Jellyfish in Japan

Japan suffers from periodic red tides. Red tides are dense blooms or massive concentration of oxygen-consuming microscopic algae that grow and spread at a great speed. Despite their name, most of the time they are not red (although they can be). They are usually different shades of brown and can be bright green.

A red tide in June 2004 in the Inland Sea killed an estimate 300,000 fish. Among those killed were red sea bream and flatfish raised on fish farms. Red tides kills fish and other aquatic life through suffocation by depriving them of oxygen and producing toxins that can paralyze marine life. Once a red tide reaches critical mass, there is little that anyone can do other wait for it to end. A red tide can last anywhere form a few days to a few months. They are usually seasonally, typically occurring the fall in temperate climates.

null
Echizen jellyfish are nasty creatures that can weigh up to 200 kilograms and reach a size of two meters in diameter. They have caused havok in the fishing industry in Japan. The have been caught by the boatloads in the Sea of Japan off of Fukui, Shimane and Ishikawa Prefecture in western Honshu. They have brown poisonous tentacles that kill fish and cause them to lose their color. Their huge numbers fouls fishing nets with a nasty smell. Their massive weight tears the nets when they are pulled out of the water.

The damage to the fishing industry has been in the tens of billions of yen. On fisherman told the Yomiuri Shimbun, “The nets were fouled by hundreds of jellyfish as soon as they were put out. There was little room for other fish, The fish that touched the tentacles of the jellyfish turned white, and the retail value of the fish is reduced to zero.” Jellyfish blooms have clogged seawater intake valves and caused nuclear power plants to reduce power.

In the old days Echizen-kurage disappeared by peak autumn fishing season but warmer waters, perhaps caused by global warming, have caused them to stick around longer. The presence of the poisonous jellyfish has adversely affects fishing for cavalla and yellowtail because the fish try to stay clear of the jellyfish. Some blame China for the problem, saying the jellyfish originate in waters off the coast China and their growth is triggered by pollutants dumped in the sea. See Fishing

Japan and Tropical Rain Forest Deforestation

In the 1970s, 1980s and 90s Japan was a major villain in the deforestation of the world’s tropical rainforests, particularly those in Malaysia and Indonesia but that is not the case today.Chopping down the world’s rain forests deprives the world of carbon-dioxide-consuming trees and plants and causes other terrible things. Japan has traditionally been the world's largest consumer of tropical rain forest wood. Much of the rain forest in Borneo has been cut down to meet the demands of the Japanese market. In the 1980s Japan received the vast majority of its tropical timber from Sarawak and Sabah in Malaysia. These days much of the timber imported to Japan with a Malaysian label is actually from trees that have been illegally logged in Indonesia.

In the 1980s a Japanese company which harvested lumber for the manufacturing of cardboard boxes operated a giant tree eating machine near Medang, Papua New Guinea. The core of the machine was a 15-ton disk with eight steel blades that revolved at a speed of 320 times a minute. Trees were cut to match book size chips in seconds. It was estimated that this one machine gobbled up 7½ square miles of rain forest every year, consuming any species of tree fed to it. Most of the boxes made from chips were sold to electronics firms like Hitachi and Sony and number of trees eaten up depends of number of orders Japan receives from the United States for electronic products. [Source: Peter White, National Geographic, January 1983]

The clear-cut areas are usually replanted with one species of fast-growing tree that are vulnerable to massive attacks from insects Plantations of fast-growing hoop pines planted in burned off rain forest near Bulolo, Papua New Guinea produce enough wood for 45 million pairs of chopsticks a month. Most of the chopsticks are shipped to fast food restaurants in Japan. [Source: Peter White, National Geographic] . The use of rain forest wood continued. In the mid 2000s, about 80 percent of the wooden material used in Japan was imported, and of this 25 percent came from rain forests. About 2.6 million cubic meters of wood was imported from Indonesia in 2004, accounting for nearly 40 percent of the total rain forest wood imported into Japan.. Malaysia, supplied 50 percent of such wood to Japan. According to a joint survey conducted in 1998 by the British and Indonesian governments, legally lumbered wood accounted for only about half of that transported to sawmills in Indonesia. [Source: Yomiuri Shimbun, July 28, 2006]

Japanese Rainforest organizatios: Japan’s Tropical Forest Action Network jca.apc.org/jatan
Amazon Rainforest Foundation of Japan rainforestjp.com ;

Disposable Chopsticks in China and Japan Strip Asian Forests

Japan consumers use about 25 billion pairs of disposable chopsticks every a year. In many cases they are made abroad, particularly China, increasing deforestation in China, where 95 percent if them come from. Rachel Nuwer wrote in the New York Times, Though the chopstick is the quintessential cutlery choice throughout most of Asia, Japan and China in particular seem prone to using the disposable variety. In China, smaller restaurants prefer disposables while larger ones tend to go with plastic. In Japan, disposables are found even at nicer sit-down establishments. [Source: Rachel Nuwer, New York Times, October 24, 2011]

null
Papua New Guinea
rain forest timber
bound for Japan “Each year, the equivalent of 3.8 million trees go into the manufacture of about 57 billion disposable pairs of chopsticks in China, according to statistics from that nation’s national forest bureau. About 45 percent of disposable chopsticks are made from trees like cotton wood, birch, and spruce, while the remainder are made from bamboo. Half of the disposables are consumed within China. Of the other half, 77 percent is exported to Japan, 21 percent to South Korea and 2 percent to the United States. Chopsticks add to a plague of regional deforestation. According to a 2008 United Nations report, 10,800 square miles of Asian forest are disappearing each year, a trend that must be arrested to fight climate change, given the vital role trees play in absorbing carbon dioxide.

“Donna Keiko Ozawa, a San Francisco activist and artist, told the New York Times,”Japanese restaurants in particular have a tendency to use disposables. They weren’t composting or recycling. For a country otherwise obsessed with recycling — a typical Japanese kitchen often devotes half its space to multiple trash bins for meticulously sorting recyclables — the chopstick phenomenon may seem puzzling. Cost isn’t the driver: restaurants investing in reusable chopsticks at $1.17 a pop actually save money in cost-per-use by comparison with disposables. Restaurant reusables normally have a life span of about 130 meals. Disposables cost about 2 cents in Japan, so the equivalent 130 disposable pairs cost about $2.60.

“Of course, some customers may balk at eating with reusables, citing sanitary concerns. But disposable chopsticks pose risks of their own for consumers and the environment, Greenpeace says. While production standards exist in China, it says, supervision is sometimes nonexistent, especially in small factories. Industrial-grade sulfur, paraffin, hydrogen peroxide and insect repellent are among the harmful chemicals that Chinese media investigations have exposed during production. Paraffin is a known carcinogen, and hydrogen peroxide can harm the digestive system. Chopsticks irresponsibly disposed of can contaminate water and soil quality.

Efforts to Break the Wooden Chopstick Habit in Japan and China

The chopstick deforestation problem has been addressed by a campaign to get consumers to demand Japan-made chopsticks, usually made from waste wood, even though they are slightly more expensive. Activists argue that the disposable chopstick habit could gradually be phased out on an individual basis. Chopstick sets complete with a simple or decorative case are sold at many stores and are easy to put in a purse, knapsack or briefcase, they note. In China, organizations like Greenpeace East Asia are trying to raise awareness of the issue. In December, 200 students from 20 Chinese universities collected 82,000 pairs of used disposable chopsticks from Beijing restaurants. With the discarded utensils, they built four trees, each 16 feet high, to create a “disposable forest.” [Source: Rachel Nuwer, New York Times, October 24, 2011]

“The project was featured in a busy pedestrian mall in Beijing, and the students encouraged 40,000 passersby to sign a petition rejecting disposable chopsticks. “Imagine thousands of people passing by that area every day,” said Aihong Li, a spokeswoman for Greenpeace in Beijing. “It was quite shocking for people to see these images.”

“In 2007, China imposed a tax on wooden chopsticks with the goal of helping the environment. After that, Japan — which boasts one of the world’s highest forest coverage rates at 69 percent — simply began relying more on other suppliers like Vietnam, Indonesia, and Russia rather than phasing out disposables. While there has been no Japanese legislation to address the issue, a few on-the-ground changes are gaining popularity. Some restaurants now stock plastic chopsticks, although they keep a stash of disposables on hand in case customers request them. At the ubiquitous convenience stores throughout Japan, cashiers now ask if customers need chopsticks rather than sticking them into checkout bags by default. Certain restaurants also offer discounts or free tea for people who bring their own utensils.

Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons, NASA, Greenpeace Japan, Ray Kinnane

Text Sources: Japan’s Ministry of Environment, Library of Congress, CIA World Factbook. Daily Yomiuri, Japan National Tourist Organization (JNTO), National Geographic, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Smithsonian magazine, Encyclopedia.com, Live Science, The Conversation, The New Yorker, Time, BBC, CNN, Reuters, Associated Press, AFP, Lonely Planet Guides, Google AI, Wikipedia, The Guardian and various websites, books and other publications.

Last updated August 2026