The seawall issue

Amami can be split roughly into two halves. The north covers around a third of the land mass, is home to the airport and city of Naze, has accessible beaches and large supermarkets, and is the heart of touristic development. Because people moving from the mainland often want to live here, the population is rising, while in south Amami it is falling. While the scenery is striking, south Amami has high mountains and dense subtropical rainforest, meaning it can be dark and rains a lot. It is reminiscent of rural mainland Japan, where the population frequently consists of elderly residents, and the local authorities are battling depopulation (Klien Reference Klien2020; Traphagan Reference Traphagan2020). Katoku is located around an hour’s drive south from Naze and within the buffer zone of the World Natural Heritage Site. To reach the village, one must branch off the main highway and pass through deep mountains on poorly maintained roads before dropping steeply down to the coast. The village has around fourteen houses with neat vegetable gardens and a density of butterflies I had not seen anywhere else in Amami. With only seventeen residents and no children, it is remarkably quiet, aside from the comings and goings of surfers who come here to catch the waves of the Pacific Ocean (Fig. 6). While the community in Katoku is small, the challenges it faces and the impacts of the protest movement around it have larger repercussions beyond this one community.

Figure 6:

A surfer waiting for a wave on Katoku Beach. Photo: Charlotte Linton.

Set back from the island’s main coastline, Katoku has a “pocket beach,” which oceanographer Ed Atkins explains “are often treated as closed systems, with sediment transport largely limited to beach rotation where sand moves back and forth across the bay under different wave conditions” (2021: np). From 1946 onward, aerial photography has demonstrated the ever-changing character of the beach and river estuary, as the amount of sand and width of the beach is impacted by atmospheric conditions. In years when typhoons are strong, such as in 2014, when the highest number of category five typhoons were recorded in Japan since the 1990s, much of the beach material can retreat into the bay allowing waves to break further out at sea but causing the beach width to narrow. In calmer seas and with the help of the river, the sand is redistributed, and within a year or two the beach can recover as it had done by 2017. Colliding forces of river and tide create sand bars that sculpt dramatic shapes into the beach, containing the river parallel to the shoreline and impacting the location of the river mouth, which changes locations depending on the season (Figs. 7 and 8). The sand dunes that have protected inhabitants of Katoku for thousands of years—Jomon era (c. 14,500 to c. 300 BCE) pottery has been unearthed here—are dense with native plants, adan (pandanus) and asagao (morning glory), whose roots knot sand and soil providing a natural buffer. Given the complexity of the riverine and oceanographic dynamics, the site resembles a living textbook, an argument furthered by its archaeological and ecological value having a river that connects the mountains with the sea. This ecosystem is a critical habitat for endangered species, including nesting loggerhead and green and leatherback turtles, the latter of which last nested on the beach in 2002 and was the first recorded sighting of this species in Japan (Kamezaki et al. Reference Kamezaki, Katsuki, Mizuno, Toji and Doi2002). The Ryūkyū Ayu swims upriver to the mountains to spawn, a critically endangered freshwater shrimp named Palaemon paucidens C type (Takeda and Ikeda Reference Takeda and Ikeda2022) has been found here, and rare terrestrial hermit crabs, large and purple in color, live on the dune. On the day I visited with Katoku resident Jean-Marc Takaki, he spotted paw prints in the sand: “People don’t believe me when I say the [rare and endangered] Amami black rabbits come down from the mountains to the beach” he said, but the damp sand had caught one in motion. Jean-Marc-san, who is French–Japanese, has lived in Amami since 2010 and is one of the most outspoken opponents of the seawall. Through close observation and private study, he has gained an intimate knowledge of Katoku’s coastal dynamics and delicate ecosystem.Footnote ¹ Inscribing in the sand to explain to a novice, he laid out the situation and its consequences (Fig. 9).

Figure 7:

The Katoku River carving channels into the sand. Photo: Charlotte Linton.

Figure 8:

A diagram showing the flow of water on Katoku’s pocket beach. Drawing: Charlotte Linton.

Figure 9:

Jean-Marc-san explaining coastal dynamics in the sand. Photo: Charlotte Linton.

In response to a request by some of Katoku’s residents, concerned about the village cemetery and threat to the border of their properties, in 2016 the prefecture proposed to build a 530 m × 6.5 m seawall along Katoku beach costing 530 million yen (approximately US $3.6 million). Consultation with villagers and interested parties ensued, including Jean-Marc-san and his partner Hisami-san, local environmentalists, academics, activist lawyers, surfers, and concerned Amamians. Those involved with the protest movement say their concerns were initially dismissed, but when the Nature Conservation Society of Japan became involved, the prefecture formed a committee consisting of the village head and various officials and professors to discuss the wall’s design. As a result of these meetings, in 2018 the design was downgraded to a 180 m × 6.5 m seawall at a cost of 320 million yen (approximately US $2.2 million). To “protect” nature and the visual quality of the bay, it was proposed that vegetation should be planted in front of the seawall, hiding it from view. A Kagoshima-based construction company with a branch in Amami was contracted, and works began to prepare the site, including the removal of dune vegetation to create a throughway for heavy machinery and the construction of huge concrete blocks. All the while, the protest and subsequent conflict grew into a bitter dispute, even involving the police, leading to discourse between the various stakeholders to break down.Footnote ² Within the hamlet of only seventeen households, an ideological debate has ensued between “indigenous” residents who support construction and who tend to have long family ties to Katoku (and often the construction companies) and those moving in from “outside” of Katoku who oppose the seawall—those born in other areas of Amami or Japan (so-called I-turn and U-turn migrants) and who might even be conceptualized as “foreigners.”Footnote ³ Others were caught between the social obligation to agree with the authorities and their old neighbors and their desire to protect nature and the uniqueness of the village, and to support the passionate “outsiders.”Footnote ⁴

In such situations, experts are often called upon to bring clarity, but the field of coastal engineering and oceanography in Japan is similarly a site of contestation. Carrying out an assessment using drone footage, Japanese coastal engineers Nishi et al. Reference Nishi, Kaneko, Fukunaga and Tsurunari2020 concluded that strong typhoons in 2014 caused an isolated incident of erosion to the beach while historical aerial photography showed that erosion of the dune forest has been occurring since the 1940s. But rather than advising dune restoration via binding plants—a “nature-based” solution increasingly supported by international scientists (Perricone et al. Reference Perricone, Mutalipassi, Mele, Buono, Vicinanza and Contestabile2023)—Nishi et al. recommended an engineering solution supporting the prefecture’s construction plan. Yet Atkins states that aerial photographic evidence is not sufficient to understand the complexity of the site, which has a high/low tide differentiation of 2 m. Depending on the season, the river can flow uninterrupted into the sea or the creation of sandbars means it flows along the width of the beach before exiting. Since the beach had already narrowed in 2013 (a fact ignored by Nishi et al.), Atkins considers whether works carried out by the municipality to divert the course of the river—to stop it flowing along the beach—could have impacted the beach’s ability to recover by allowing the river to redistribute materials. This suggests ignorance of coastal dynamics has actually caused beach erosion in Katoku. As he writes: “Small changes to the existing dynamics can have large consequences with cumulative and compounding impacts” (Atkins Reference Atkin2021). This opinion is shared by coastal engineering expert Taka’aki Uda’s writing in relation to the situation across Japan where sand mining, the damning of rivers, and the concreting of embankments and cliffs is widespread. He suggests that by disrupting the replenishment of natural materials, of the sand, soil, and stone that coastlines need, the dynamics of natural systems are interrupted (Reference Uda2010: 3). In addition to works carried out on the beach, Kagoshima Prefecture has permitted licenses for sand dredging for the construction industry in the waters around Amami, and villagers have said that in the past, boats have even made their way into Katoku Bay. If these materials are removed, what is left to replenish the beach?

The second and most significant issue is whether a seawall would exacerbate erosion, destroying the beach beyond repair, making the village unlivable and the beach unsafe for both human and non-human residents. Uda argues that building hard structures to protect land undermines the natural system of the beach (Reference Uda2010). Whereas beaches disperse energy by allowing waves to “peel” along the sand, promoting downward percolation, hard structures “increase turbulence” and represent an unmoving “line in the sand” (Atkins Reference Atkin2021). This means any materials surrounding that structure—sand, stones, soil, plant, and animal life—will gradually be removed by the force of the waves, jeopardizing the integrity of the structure and the existence of the beach (Figs. 10 and 11).Footnote ⁵ This action undermines the authorities’ plans to “hide” the wall beneath vegetation—located next to a hard structure with nothing to anchor their roots, plants would not withstand a fast-flowing river, strong tide, or winds, especially in an extreme weather event. In 2014, the authorities erected sandbags to buttress the dune on which the cemetery is built. In 2015, residents and activists planted pandanus around this degraded area, and within eight years, these plants have provided significant restoration. While across the world resistance to concrete coastal structures is growing among scientists, the public, and bureaucrats alike, and “Integrated Coastal Management” being widely adopted, Japan lags painfully behind (Wakita and Yagi Reference Wakita and Yagi2013). As an outsider, it is difficult to fathom why, but as anthropologist Shuhei Kimura states, “infrastructure is not always infrastructure only in a material sense: it can have many other symbolic or imaginative capacities” (Reference Kimura2016: 28). Seawalls provide a sense of security or protection from aporetic forces even if they are technically deficient. But they are also symbols of modernization and repositories of huge economic revenue, tied to dysfunctional economic and environmental policy.

Figure 10:

A collapsed seawall on Uttabaru Beach in north Amami. Photo: Charlotte Linton.

Figure 11:

A cross section of the natural dune “wall” that sits beside it. Photo: Charlotte Linton.

Extrastructure infrastructure

The second time I visited Katoku, I met with Eriko Minayoshi, the protestor I saw at the 70th anniversary ceremony. She corrected me that rather than being the lone protestor at the ceremony in November, she was not alone that day—eight others were there opposing the expansion of military bases on the island. In 2017, when I first visited Amami, I was surprised by the number of military vehicles on the roads. I knew Japan had a Self-Defense Force but naively thought the country strictly abided by the pacifist conventions drawn up after WWII. However, territorial tensions have been increasing, with North Korea testing ballistic missiles through Japanese territory and China making claims on Taiwan. I heard rumors that the Japanese government was building storage in the mountains for American missiles—it was not until I visited Katoku in 2023 that I saw the location of what appears to be one of these missile stores. Because of the neo-colonialism experienced by neighbors in Okinawa (Nishiyama Reference Nishiyama2022; Higa Reference Higa2024), Amamians are nervous about increased military presence, fearing the American Military will attempt to dominate their island also. These fears can be traced back to the reversion movement, with one local historian telling me that in 1952, before the island was returned to Japan, the US Military had proposed to “turn Amami into the next Hawaii.” But the US State Department, who were embroiled in the Korean war at the time, saw local protests as a distraction and the island’s geography—80% of which is mountainous—as an impediment to a permanent military base, and despite its strategic stronghold and marine access, agreed to hand Amami back to the Japanese. Although the recent return of the specter of US-supported military presence on the island is the result of current day geopolitics, the viability of building a costly military site on a remote mountainside can be traced back to the post-war period and the economic policy that has defined Amami for the past seventy years.

Since the 1950s, two acts of law written under the guise of development have provided huge income streams to Amami. Anthropologist Sueo Kuwahara explains the first is the nationwide “Remote Islands Development Act,” designed for “eliminating the backwardness caused by the isolation or remoteness from the mainland and for promotion of industries by developing social infrastructure” (Reference Kuwahara2012: 42). This act has been revised approximately every ten years, accounting for changing social, economic, and political conditions. In the 1950s, advancing education and healthcare was a priority, while in the 1960s, transportation and communication was the focus. In the 1970s, tourism facilitation and industrial development was on the agenda, and in the 1980s and 1990s, the role Japan’s “remote” islands play in defense of territory and marine resources was highlighted.Footnote ⁶ Since the 2000s, the aim of the Act has been to promote the “valuable gaps” (ibid) between mainland Japan and its islands by recognizing their unique characteristics. While previously the purpose of this political intervention was to obtain for island residents comparable standards of living to those on the mainland, more recently it has been recognized that blanket homogenization puts at risk island “uniqueness” that contributes to the national character—including nature and biodiversity, access to marine resources, tourism potential, and island’s roles as havens for well-being and culture. Nevertheless, the rate of property development for tourism and military expansionism in Amami alone puts these new aims into question.

The second is the “Act on Special Measures for Promotion and Development for Amami,” abbreviated as the “Amashin” Law (ibid: 42), whose term has been extended every five years since its conception in 1954. The Amashin Law was considered necessary to address inequality across the Amami island group, following economic depression resulting from eight years of US occupation. It aimed to “reconstruct,” “develop,” and then “promote,” but essentially it aims to support Amami’s economy to reach self-sufficiency and ensure equivalent income levels to those on the mainland. After seventy years, it is still reaching for those aims, having found then lost the core industry of the local kimono cloth Oshima tsumugi in the 1960s, whose sales crashed alongside the economy in the late 1980s (Linton Reference Linton2020). Writing in 2012, Kuwahara says the Japanese government has sunk 1.44 trillion yen (around US $10 billion) into the Amami islands via the Amashin Law and, like the monies devoted to the Remote Islands Development Act, around 80% of the total Amashin budget has been spent on public works. The widespread construction of roads, tunnels, bridges, dams, coastal defenses, and harbors has brought convenience to Amami, but opponents argue they have disfigured it in the process (Figure 12). As such, Kuwahara calls the Amashin Law “a devil in disguise” (Reference Kuwahara and Aoyama2001: 77) as it has threatened to erase the island’s identity.

Figure 12:

The harbor with tetrapods at Kashiken, Amami Oshima. Photo: Charlotte Linton.

Scholars of Japan will be aware of the country’s poor record on the environment, which contrasts with the public image of Japan living in harmony with nature (Kagawa-Fox Reference Kagawa-Fox2012: 3–8). Industrialization and economic activity since the Meiji Restoration (around 1868), which then exploded in the post-WWII period, has seen a range of man-made environmental disasters and pollution events that have impacted society and destroyed ecosystems from the macro to the landscape scale (Walker Reference Walker2010). Modern Japanese historian Gavan McCormack has identified the extreme and damaging nature of Japan’s addiction to public works, which has dominated the national budget since the 1960s. Writing in 1995, McCormack references 1993, when 31.8 trillion yen (US $211 billion) was spent on construction across Japan, equivalent to 43% of the national budget. By comparison, the US (with a land mass twenty five times that of Japan) spent the equivalent of 54 trillion yen (Reference McCormack1995: 26–27). While works have been carried out under the guise of development and modernization—improving the efficiency, safety, and convenience of the sea and landscape for the health and wealth of its citizens—McCormack argues that corruption and a mismanaged economy is at the heart. He explains: “Construction is incidental to the reproduction of power and the distribution of profit” (ibid: 27), with public works projects maintaining snug relationships between construction companies, local bureaucrats, and politicians. A buoyant construction industry has been used to sustain gross domestic product (GDP) and guarantee local votes and jobs, especially in areas such as Amami, where opportunities are few. He says, “Construction is also a massive welfare system, whose beneficiaries run into the millions, an incubus on the state and society comparable to the mafia in other countries” (ibid). These accusations of mafia-style organized crime are not without grounds, since in 1993, a web of corruption led to multiple arrests (ibid: 28).

Although local gossip about the huge wealth of the owners of the main construction companies in Amami and Kagoshima is prevalent, I am not aware of any grounds to suggest corruption is active on the island. Yet, in line with Japan’s economic boom, employment figures for the construction industry peaked in the 1980s and 1990s, and today it remains one of the core industries and largest employment sectors on the island. As I have written elsewhere regarding forestry in Amami (Linton Reference Linton2022), Japan is an extreme user of what Marxist geographer David Harvey calls the “spatiotemporal fix” (Reference Harvey2001), a capitalist solution used to “fix” the problem of over-accumulation of surplus resources and labor and relocate them in new times and places where formally there was little economic activity. By sinking capital generated in Japan’s major cities into unnecessary public works in rural locales such as Amami, local cement and concrete plants get orders (using sand dredged from Kagoshima Prefecture’s waters); construction companies are given huge contracts; local people have work; and their wage labor stimulates the economy, providing taxation that contributes back to the public funding of construction work.

While McCormack was first writing about this issue almost thirty years ago, since little has changed, he continues to work on the topic. Despite a stagnant economy, huge public debt, and the advance of environmental and engineering science, Japan continues to spend obscene amounts of money on both large and small infrastructure projects, engaging in what McCormack calls “‘extrastructure’ (works undertaken for their own sake or without obvious social need) investment” (Reference McCormack2018: 168). Yet there are signs that changes in public opinion are on the rise. During an interview, one of my participants explained:

This situation is reflected in the debates around the reconstruction of post-tsunami Tohoku and the huge seawalls that have been (re)constructed along the coastline in the aftermath. McCormack has written how the Abe government, who regained power in 2012, used as one of their central campaigning slogans “making the country resilient” (kokudo kyojinka) and in 2013 made it official with the “Basic Law for National Resilience” (Reference McCormack2018 : 170). Japan is a hot spot for natural disasters, and it is understandable that people want to feel safe. But to what extent can concrete infrastructure “protect people and property,” especially when the extremity of disasters goes “beyond expectation” (soutei-gai) (Kimura Reference Kimura2016: 25)? And to what extent might these infrastructures actually hamper survival?

In a 2016 paper, Kimura writes about the experience of a village in Iwate Prefecture, which was devastated by the tsunami that claimed thirty of its residents. He describes the tension between the authorities, who planned to build a 14-m-high seawall that would obliterate sea views, and residents who wanted to maintain a visible connection with the coast. Local fishermen felt the safety and effectiveness of their work was impacted by their ability to watch “the ‘face’ of the sea” (ibid: 28). Prior to the spread of advance communication systems in the 1960s, residents too used perception to monitor the waves and watch the behavior of fish and animals (Littlejohn Reference Littlejohn2020: 25). If a tsunami was deemed imminent, they would evacuate to historically safe areas—trees or rocks that marked the reach of previous tsunamis. After the 1960s, a succession of dangerous typhoons and tsunamis led the government to construct seawalls, allowing them to negotiate risk on resident’s behalf. In 2011 this loss of agency had, in many sad cases, led residents to put too much trust in the ability of a seawall to protect them (Kimura Reference Kimura2016; Littlejohn Reference Littlejohn2020). In the years since 3.11, multiple journalists and scholars have written about communities resisting huge seawalls, attempting to negotiate the design or replace them with “non-technical” trees and markers that prioritize evacuation over prevention (Bird Reference Bird2013; Kimura Reference Kimura2016; Yoneyama Reference Yoneyama2019; Littlejohn Reference Littlejohn2020). Yet the battles that ensue with the authorities are difficult to comprehend. Kimura (Reference Kimura2016: 26) references Foucault’s theory of “governmentality” by way of explanation, suggesting the Japanese government use risk, danger, and crisis to control the population. Equally, the management of risk and the avoidance of blame is likely to be a motivating factor for the authorities.

When discussing the Katoku issue among friends on the island—a topic that has become so contentious in Amami that it demands hushed tones—many people bring up the risk of tsunami and say that locals have a right to protection. Yet in the event of a tsunami, the current wall design would offer little defense, since it only extends along a proportion of the beach and its height (6.5 m above sea level) is lower than the height of the village and cemetery, which at its lowest point sits at 8.5 m above sea level and at its highest point 16 m (Atkins Reference Atkin2021). This lack of understanding demonstrates that public discourse held across the island is being made without sufficient information at hand about the environment in Katoku, or the costs or technical deficiencies of the wall, despite the activists sharing this data widely. With the situation fraught, it is understandable that public debate has been stifled or gone underground, with few willing to engage in the details or vocally support the activists and break the myth of social harmony. While similar peaceful protests documented in nearby Okinawa to oppose the expansion of US military bases have, for the most part, seen many kinds of Japanese coming together against an outside force—the US Military, who have for seventy years caused social and environmental harm in Okinawa (Kosuzu Reference Kosuzu2011; Higa Reference Higa2024)—the protest in Katoku has been internalized, pitching indigeneity against internationalism.Footnote ⁷

The last course of action for activists has been to bring about a lawsuit to stop the works. Yet rather than bringing a suit solely on environmental grounds, to have a chance of winning, the lawyers are fighting using the language the government understands, namely economics.

“Even if we can save Katoku it doesn’t mean we can save Amami”

On a Saturday evening the day before Shōgatsu (Japanese New Year), the biggest public holiday in Japan, Kazuko and I drove through torrential rain to the offices of Wada-san who was waiting for us out of hours with a cat, the office emptied for the holidays. Wada-san has been involved with the Katoku issue from early on, attending public meetings and talking with residents whether they support the wall or not. In his day job, Wada-san works on civil law—land disputes, finance, inheritance, and divorce—but with the Katoku case he is the lawyer on the ground, assisting a group of around eight lawyers in Osaka working pro-bono for the Japan Environmental Lawyers Federation (JELF).Footnote ⁸ With the residents as plaintiff, in 2019, JELF brought a lawsuit against Kagoshima Prefecture on the basis of the misuse of public funds for wasteful public works. On their website they state:

The construction at Katoku has been ordered by Kagoshima Prefecture, who oversee municipal governance in Amami, but is funded by central government. Criteria must be met for spending public funds, and the lawsuit is asking whether the prefecture is in breach of regulations. This attack on public works using an economic argument is a method being used by JELF in multiple lawsuits, including at Katoku. Prior to forming this strategy, JELF adopted the radical tactic of granting non-human entities personhood in their legal cases. In 1995, the chairman on the Katoku case, Taka’aki Kagohashi-san, led a suit against the prefecture to stop the construction of a golf course in Sumiyo-son, south Amami, where the mountains are inhabited by a range of endemic species, including endangered black rabbits (Kagohashi Reference Kagohashi2002). The case gained attention in the national and international media because the rabbit was named as a plaintiff—in effect, regarding the animal as a legal person.Footnote ⁹ This form of environmental law, which originates in America and has had significant success in countries such as New Zealand (Sanders Reference Sanders2018), had never been used in Japan. Although it established a precedent, the case was lost. However, since the lawsuit occurred during Japan’s financial crash and the proceedings dragged on for years, the development was dropped for economic reasons. Today black rabbit numbers have recovered beyond expectation, and the forest is a World Natural Heritage Site. Wada-san explained the change in tactic rather bluntly: “Japan’s Ministry of the Environment is weak. So, from now on we have to do our part through our economic activities. It is difficult for Japan to change things through any kind of movement. If you try to change something through a movement… your life expectancy would expire.”

In addition to the misuse of public funds, the lawyers are also arguing that the project violates Coastal Law by not taking into account the natural environment and misleading residents on the location of the wall. In plans and illustrations, the wall appears close to the dune and village on the “inland area.” But bringing the court to the beach at Katoku, including the judge, revealed the wall would actually be located on the beach side. This underlines concerns about the risk to the very fabric of the beach, since the river could run parallel to the wall, and the tide could buffer it during storm surges, removing sand and plant and animal life. Wada-san expressed his frustrations with this possible future by explaining that in places such as New Zealand and the US, oceanographers are increasingly recommending soft structures to tackle coastal erosion such as dune and flood plain restoration. Engineers have, in some cases, begun “managed realignment” by removing hard structures, a process that will become necessary with climate-induced sea level rise, a pertinent issue for an island nation such as Japan.Footnote ¹⁰ Yet, Wada-san says the approach of Japan continues to be “concrete, concrete, concrete.”

Despite the arguments of Wada-san and his colleagues, the first session of JELF’s lawsuit against the seawall in the Kagoshima District Court, filed in 2019, was lost; in April 2024 the appeal in the High Court of Fukuoka was also dismissed, in effect ruling that there were no grounds to suggest that the spending of publics funds on Katoku’s seawall was unreasonable. Yet both the Katoku lawyers and activists have stated a desire to fight on. During the intervening years since the lawsuit was launched, construction work at Katoku slowed due in part to the regular non-violent sit-ins held by protestors, who see their peaceful action as a last-resort resistance when heavy machinery arrives. There have been suggestions that the prefecture is nervous about the attention the court case and the protests have brought to the Japanese government’s contravention of promises made to UNESCO and the IUCN. Although Katoku is included in the buffer zone of the World Natural Heritage Site, the protection only applies to the forest not the beach. But the regulations around the river, which inhabits both, are not so clear. Yet, even if JELF’s appeal had been successful, Wada-san said: “It would still be difficult to cancel the construction since the Japanese government has very wide discretion on such decisions. That is why it is essential that local people take an interest in these matters and work on them… the most crucial thing is a conversation not with Kagoshima Prefecture but local people in Katoku.” Essentially, the lawsuit was a delay tactic to advance discourse and understanding and to reach a collective position with the residents to oppose the current wall design. But even with his professional experience dealing with domestic infighting, Wada-san recalled: “We couldn’t make it happen… I’ve gone to talk to them. It was really hard. It’s easy to fight with the residents. All you have to do is make your point and claim your own opinion. But it is very difficult to discuss.” Wada-san’s testimony highlights the huge pressure that has been put on seventeen households in a remote hamlet to come to a consensus on a problem that has been constructed by social, political, and economic histories and policies at the national level. In this context, among people with different backgrounds and access to knowledge and exposure to the global movement of ideas, it is little wonder that the community has fractured and battle lines drawn.

The Japanese government is investing significant time and money to attract outsiders to repopulate rural areas such as Katoku, yet what has rarely been considered is that these young people bring their own ideals and politics with them. Local authorities seem ill-equipped to negotiate compromises between old and new ways of doing things, and in the case of Amami, it appears that the authorities have not been advised on how “business as usual” must be adapted when your island becomes a World Natural Heritage Site. If the municipal government had ordered an Environmental Impact Assessment before proposing a seawall in Katoku, the current wall design and the social strife that has followed might have been avoided.Footnote ¹¹ Wada-san spoke of how local people are proud of Amami’s World Natural Heritage designation, thinking that it will bring the kind of protections that would stop a seawall being considered in places such as Katoku in the first place.Footnote ¹² But the government have admitted that the reason for seeking World Natural Heritage recognition for sites across Japan is not primarily to protect nature but to boost the economy through tourism.Footnote ¹³

Between my first fieldwork in 2017 and my return at the end of 2023, there was evidence of an uptick in tourism in Amami. Hotel complexes had expanded and restricted access to their beaches. Property prices had shot up, and land was being sold without the need for planning permission. Even the bakery where I buy anpan had introduced English labels in anticipation of an influx of visitors. As our interview came to a close, Wada-san explained: “Those who have the power in this world” think about what World Natural Heritage allows them to do from an economic standpoint: “‘That’s how we can do this kind of business. This is how the land can be moved. This is how the money is made.’ That’s what they talk about.” He looked dejected and stressed that Katoku is just one example of the many social, economic, and environmental issues that the island faces, saying: “even if we can save Katoku, it doesn’t mean we can save Amami.”