September 30, 2014
Minister of Defense Akinori Eto
The Director General of Okinawa Defense Bureau Kazunori Inoue
Honorable Sirs,
We respectfully insist that you immediately discontinue the destruction of vitaldugong feeding areas which is driving the already highly endangered Okinawa dugong
population nearer to extinction.
We have been studying Okinawa dugong behavior since 2007. We carried out
seven field studies between May 16 and July 29, 2014 within the coastal area off Camp
Schwab, in Henoko, Nago City, Okinawa, the area designated for the construction on
landfill of a US base. We identified, in total, more than 100 feeding traces made bydugongs; on June 18, for example, more than 18 new feeding traces were found.
However, since July 14, when we identified 8 feeding traces, we have been unable
to find new traces. The main cause for this decline is believed to be the recent
installation, by the Coast Guard, of a pier and the mooring of a large number of rubberboats exactly upon the spots where the feeding traces had been most dense. The Coast
Guard is using the boats to chase away canoe-borne citizens protesting the constructionof the new base. The guards have also tried to stop us from carrying out the field study;
consequently, the study has become almost impossible.

Furthermore, since August 14 ,a large portion of Oura Bay, containing the places where the dugong feeding traces weremost commonly found, has been enclosed by long lines of buoys and floats. The guards
are violently harassing the protesters; the coastal area is now in an emergency situation.
The noise made by the guard ships is, we are afraid, disturbing and chasing away thedugongs; no dugong feeding traces have been found within Oura Bay since July, even in
the parts not enclosed.
The Okinawa Defense Bureau ignores this reality and repeats the alreadydiscredited claims made in their Environmental Impact Assessment for the landfill andthe base construction which concludes that the execution of the planned operations
would not cause significant harm to the individual dugongs and that the impact of theoperation upon the conservation of the Okinawa dugong population would be negligible.

The Bureau also claims that, transplanting a part of the sea-grass beds where thedugongs feed will mitigate possible impact to the dugong population.
Sea-grass transplantation has been attempted since 1985 in the Awase tideland,
in Nakagusuku Bay but it was concluded that environmental conservation throughsea-grass transplantation was impossible. Nowhere in Okinawa has sea-grass
transplantation been successful. Such transplantation would only disrupt the ecosystemof the target area. Moreover, far from mitigating the impact on the dugong, it wouldmerely accelerate the degradation of the sea-grass beds within Oura Bay and in thewaters off Henoko. Further destruction of the existing dugong feeding areas is
absolutely unacceptable.
Even in Kayo waters, a few kilometers to the north-east of Henoko, where we havebeen monitoring dugong behavior for the last five years, the distribution of their feeding
traces is, of late, unusual. We fear that the disruptive passage of guard ships andhelicopter patrols over the waters off Henoko are disturbing even the dugongs
frequenting the Kayo waters. In July and August, repeated dugong sightings werebroadcast in the media; we suppose that the sighted individual is the one feeding in thewaters off Kayo and Henoko.
On May 22, the Procurement Section of the Okinawa Defense Bureau published,in Japanese, its ‘Report on the Study of the Marine Life in the Waters off Camp Schwab(H24)’ which showed that dugong feeding traces were found in these waters in 2013.
Combining this with the findings reported last year, it is concluded that the dugongs
have been feeding in the waters off Henoko continually for these three years.
The waters off Henoko and Oura Bay, together with the sea-areas off Kayo andKouri, comprise important feeding areas for dugongs. Dugongs have frequently beensighted between Cape Gimi and Cape Ban, to the east of Henoko. Any ecosystem
disruption in these waters is gravely harmful to the surviving extremely small dugong
population.
We sincerely wish to see the Okinawa dugong, the world’s northernmost
population of the species, survive and live peacefully, safe from further disturbance.
We demand that:

1) The Okinawa Defense Bureau immediately discontinue destruction of the dugong
feeding areas and disruption of the ecosystem in the waters off Henoko and OuraBay.
2) The Coast Guard return to their ‘duties maintaining safety at sea’ and stop theirexcessive ‘security operations’ against the protesting citizens.
3) The seabed boring survey, which is disrupting the dugong feeding places, isimmediately discontinued; and the guard ships and rubber boats removed.
4) Plans to destroy marine ecosystems and violate local fishing rights by destroying thereefs and landfilling are withdrawn.
5) The enclosure of waters for public use and the obstruction of dugong behavior
studies within the waters off Henoko and Oura Bay are immediately ended.
The Northernmost Dugong Study Group Team Zan
Coordinator: Masako Suzuki
Miyasato 4-12-8, Nago, Okinawa
n-hokugen.19@kjd.biglobe.ne.jp