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May 15 marks 40 years since Okinawa "reverted" from US military administration to Japan, but the celebrations in 2012 will be muted. While few Okinawans regret the fact of reversion, there is widespread resentment over the fact that the national government continues to insist the prefecture serve US military ends first and foremost. Newspaper opinion surveys taken on the eve of the commemoration found that 69 percent of Okinawans believed they were the subject of inequitable and discriminatory treatment because of the heavy concentration of US military bases, and nearly 90 percent took the position that the Futenma Marine Base should either be unconditionally closed and the land simply revert to Ginowan township or else be moved away, whether elsewhere in Japan or beyond it. That figure exceeds even the opposition of the time of the Hatoyama government (84 percent) less than two years ago. A similar 90 percent oppose the deployment within Okinawa of the accident-plagued MV22-Osprey VTOL (vertical takeoff and landing) aircraft that the Pentagon, backed by the government of Japan, promises to deploy in Okinawa from July.

Such is the strength of this sentiment that Okinawa's governor, the conservative ex-bureaucrat Nakaima Hirokazu, visiting Tokyo at the time of the announcement, declared that such a deployment would be "extremely impossible " (sic), and suggested that if the aircraft were really so safe they could be deployed in Tokyo's Hibiya or Shinjuku Gyoen parks. The outrage deepened a week later when it was announced that the aircraft would be assembled and first tested at Naha Military Port, little more than a stone's throw from Okinawa's capital, Naha. Naha mayor Onaga described it as the worst proposal ever, and declared that he could not contain his fierce anger at the way the people of Okinawa and Naha were being mocked. Medoruma Shun, the prefecture's pre-eminent novelist, also widely respected as its conscience, called upon the governor to convene a mass meeting of Okinawans to formally declare their opposition.

Urashima Etsuko reflects on the issues, including the future of nature on Okinawa, from atop Mt. Kushu overlooking the area that Japan and the US propose as the site for a new base.  

Urashima Etsuko is an environmental activist, author, and chronicler of Okinawan people's movements of resistance against bases and hyper-development and for nature conservation. The Japanese text of this article was written (dated 30 April 2012) as her regular essay for the quarterly Impaction.

Gavan McCormack is emeritus professor at Australian National University, a coordinator of The Asia Pacific Journal, and co-author (with Satoko Oka Norimatsu) of the soon to be released Resistant Islands: Okinawa Confronts Japan and the United States (Rowman and Littlefield, July 2012).

Recommended citation: Urashima Etsuko with an introduction by Gavan McCormack, 'Okinawa's Nature Groaning - Let's Turn Mt Kushi into a Forest of Life. On the Sixtieth Anniversary of the San Francisco Treaty and the Fortieth Anniversary of Okinawa's Reversion to Japan,' The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol 10, Issue 20, No 1, May 14, 2012.

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Miguel Quintana is a freelance journalist and translator based in Tokyo. A regular contributor to Nuclear Intelligence Weekly (Washington DC) and correspondent for Le Soir (Belgium), he is an Asia-Pacific Journal associate.    

While the rhetoric in this post 3.11 era is "mae muki" (looking ahead), there are still hundreds of thousands of people displaced by the Tohoku disasters, many of whom are living in "temporary housing" units.  This is not a self-sufficient way of life, and volunteers are still needed in many different ways, from playing with school kids and having tea parties with the elderly, to recovery activities, such as helping build a shotengai (shopping arcade) or fixing fisherman's nets. There is still rubble to be cleared, and beaches and parks to be cleaned. Of course, the more interaction with locals, the more Japanese language ability is useful.

Most "volunteer centers" and NPOs have closed or are no longer able to accommodate random volunteers, esp. those with little or no "skills" (carpentry, husbandry, etc). Most also expect you to stay for a longer period of time (a week or more) or are only interested in preformed groups.
I have selected four options for potential volunteers. Here are the selection criteria:

1. They are still active, with good connections to the local community
2. They are well-organized, safe and get you working
3. They provide all equipment (free), and can also provide
transportation, food and housing (for a fee)
4. They are open to short-term stays by those with various language
abilities
5. They are outside of any radiation areas (all in Ishinomaki)
6. I can vouch for them personally  

Slater assesses the opportunities for volunteer work with four major organizations active in providing a range of relief services in the disaster-stricken area. 

David H. Slater is an associate professor of cultural anthropology in the Faculty of Liberal Arts and the Graduate Program of Japanese Studies at Sophia University, Tokyo. He is the co-editor with Ishida Hiroshi of Social Class in Contemporary Japan: Structures, Socialization and Strategies. He currently is completing a book on youth labor in neoliberal Japan. Contact: d-slater@sophia.ac.jp