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ABSTRACT
This paper describes current environmental marine issues in Japan that may have an impact on human health. In addition, it addresses possible solutions to solving Japan's environmental problems. Fourteen marine researchers and/or educators were interviewed and surveyed on global marine issues. Respondents ranked their responses and findings indicated that although a consensus was reached, some marine issues were directly related and not mutually exclusive. Sewage pollution, oil pollution, non. biodegradable pollution, and habitat destruction were listed as the major threats to the well being of Japan.
Although Japan's response to environmental degradation in the past was crisis orientated, Japan has acknowledged a global approach to solving and preventing marine environmental problems. Environmental problems are not only scientific but include a human component. Education and public health have become major parameters to solving environmental problems. In the future, Japan hopes to treat their environmental problems not only in a local context but in a global context as well.
INTRODUCTION
Since ancient times, the Japanese people have always been dependent on the ocean for
their livelihoods. They are sustained by the sea for their supply of fish, seaweed and other marine resources. Moreover, 44 percent of Japan's food is furnished by the ocean (Stone, 1993). More fish are caught by the Japanese than any other country in the world (Sigurdson, 1995). In Japan, marine exploration is an important activity just as in many other industrial countries. Japan is also confronted with an increasing and diversifying demand for domestic marine products (Sigurdson, 1995). However, Japan is a small nation with limited resources and in recent times the emergence of marine issues has become a special area of concern (Sigurdson, 1995).
At first, Japan's response to environmental degradation was crisis-oriented. For example, as early as 1954, there appeared the much ignored crisis of mercury pollution known as Minamata disease, in the Kumamato prefecture. Environmental problems have not only been domestic. The Japanese have now come to realize they have to treat their environmental problems in a global context as well.
Severe pollution problems reached crisis proportions after the industrialization of the postwar period (Sigurdson, 1995), and for a time, Japan was one of the most polluted countries in the world. It was not until the late...