TOKYO, June 7 (Xinhua) -- The Japanese government intends to halt land reclamation work at the site of a controversial new U.S. military base being built in the southernmost prefecture of Okinawa to protect coral in the area, government sources were cited as saying Thursday.
Despite staunch local opposition, the central government has forged ahead with relocating the U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma from a densely populated area in Ginowan, to the pristine coastal area of Nago in Henoko, also in Okinawa.
Local residents demanded that the base be moved out of the prefecture entirely.
To protect an endangered species of coral in the new construction area in Henoko, the government decided in April to take preventative measures.
The decision resulted in a delay in the construction of a seawall at the site and the government, forthwith, will likely postpone construction work for at least a month, so that the coral can be protected.
Government sources said the land reclamation work that was slated to start in July will now be pushed back until the middle of August.
Legal action against the central government's base relocation plans has been taken on numerous occasions by both the local government and civic groups in Okinawa, which are becoming increasingly vexed by their base-hosting burdens and the environmental destruction caused by the U.S. bases and their activities.
One such legal case was based on the premise that the current construction work in Nago will irrecoverably damage the region's delicate ecosystem by crushing rocks as part of the land reclamation work.
Prefectural opponents to the construction work have expressed fear that sediment to be poured inside the seawalls, which are constructed for the replacement facility in Oura Bay, will be extremely detrimental to the environment.
According to the central government's plans, it will eventually see 157 hectares of land reclaimed from waters off the Henoko area and the building of a V-shaped runway.
The nationwide liaison council Opposition to Henoko Soil Hauling concurred previously that not only does the central government's reclamation work go against the National Biodiversity Strategy of Japan, it is also disrupting an ecosystem unique only to Okinawa.
Advisor Ichiro Yuasa stated that prefectural regulations need to be effectively utilized to prevent the introduction of invasive species through land reclamation materials.
He pointed to an example of brown widow spiders, a known invasive species, being found in soil hauled from Amami Oshima for the construction of Naha Airport's second runway.
Co-representative of the group, Etsuko Abe, said that the central government should be striving for environmental conservation in accordance with the National Biodiversity Strategy, but it is in fact acting inconsistently with its own strategy by pressing forward with environmentally-destructive conducts.
The local Anti-Helicopter Base Council Diving Team Rainbow, after surveying the coral reef near the tip of one of the seawalls in the bay, concluded that the Porities lutea coral, which is part of the reef and just 20 meters away from the seawall, has a high likelihood of being destroyed by rocks being thrown into the ocean.
One of the representatives of the team said that after photographing the coral reef, it was clear that if the seawall construction continues, the endangered coral and the fish in the region will be utterly eliminated.
The waters of Oura Bay are also the last home of the endangered Japanese dugong, which is a large marine mammal and cousin of the manatee.
Environmentalists are certain of the species' extinction if the construction continues.
The return of the land to Okinawa used for the Futenma base was agreed in 1996 between the United States and Japan and in 2006 both sides inked a deal, part of which included transferring the airfield to the Henoko region on the island.
Amid staunch opposition from local officials and residents of Okinawa, and as anti-U.S. sentiment rises on the tiny island in the wake of a number of heinous crimes committed by U.S. base-linked personnel, the central government maintains that shifting the base to Henoko remains "the only solution."?