environmental history of wartime japan

8/12/2019 Environmental History of Wartime Japan

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Landscapes in the Dark Valley: Toward an Environmental History of Wartime JapanAuthor(s): William M. TsutsuiSource: Environmental History, Vol. 8, No. 2 (Apr., 2003), pp. 294-311Published by: Forest History Societyand American Society for Environmental HistoryStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3985713.

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WILLIAM .TSUTSUI

landscapesn t hD RKVALLTOWARD N ENVIRONMENTALISTORY F WARTIMEAPANJAPAN'SHOME RONT uringthe SecondWorldWarhas receivedsurprisinglylittle academicattention over the past half century.Japaneseobservershavelongseen the waryearsas a dark alley kuraitanima),a time of extremedeprivationandsuffering,amemory toobitter to recallwith detachment. 'Westernscholars,with a few notable exceptions, also have tended to slight Japan'sdomesticexperienceof war n favorofmilitaryhistoryandgranderpoliticalanddiplomaticnarratives.2Only n recentyearshaveanalystson both sides of the Pacificshownincreasing interest in wartime life in Japan,recognizingthat mass mobilizationhad significant long-term consequences for Japanesesociety. But while studieshavesuddenlyproliferatedontopics like wartime industrial andlaborpolicy,themobilization of Japanesewomen,and the legacyof statist economic andpoliticalstructures, some important aspects of Japan'shome front have continuedto beoverlooked.3

A striking omission from the scholarly literature is a systematic study ofJapan's natural environment during World War II. Wartime mobilization,dislocation, and combatclearlyleft their marks on the Japanese andscape andon the Japanesepeople's relationships with the natural world. Structures formanaging,utilizing, andperceivingthe environment-both formal andinformal,economic,political,andcultural-were recast under the pressures of totalwar.Manywartimedevelopments-from deforestation to changing patterns of ruralland-use to the radioactive aftermath at Hiroshima and Nagasaki-would havesweeping implications, even long after the end of the conflict. Gaininga fullerunderstandingof Japan's omplexand compellingwartimeexperiencedemandsthat closer attention be paid to the environmental policies, costs, andconsequences of the Second WorldWar.4

Thisessay representsapreliminarysteptowardsuch areappraisalofwartimeJapanfrom the perspectiveof environmentalhistory. The central concernhere

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LANDSCAPES IN THE DARK VALLEY I 295

willbe a fundamental-and deceptivelymodest-question: What mpactdidWorldWarIIhaveon Japan's nvironment?Fewhistorians havedirectlyaddressedthisissue. The implicit assumption of most observershas been that war-especiallytotalwar in the twentieth century-has been recklessly and unambiguouslydestructiveof the natural environment.The atomic bombings in Japan, he useof chemicals like Agent Orange in Indochina,and the burning oil wells of thePersian Gulfusually are taken as evidence aplenty for the notion that modernwarfareis inevitablyruinous for the environment.5Nevertheless,as this essay argues,the environmentaleffects of war aremuchless neat (and often much less obvious) than might at first be assumed.Specifically,whilethe SecondWorldWarclearlyhadadeleterious mpactonmanyaspects ofJapan's atural environment, here were also significantwaysinwhichthe war brought unexpectedlybeneficial environmentalconsequences.War, nother words,need not necessarily be all bad for the environment.At the sametime,the case ofJapanalsosuggests that the effects of warfareonthe environment(bethey favorableordetrimental)are often less lasting and less significant thanwe might imagine. Nature,happily,has extraordinarypowers of regeneration,andhumankind,regrettably,has anuncannyabilityto shatterdelicateecologicalsystems even in times of peace. In short, the environmental egacies of war arecomplex,contingent, and often surprisinglytransitory.Thisessaywillrangewidely n attemptingto survey he environmental mpactof WorldWarII on Japan.The causal factors of wartime environmentalchange-directwardamagefrombombing,indirect damagefromeconomic andmilitarymobilization,the consequencesof the wartimescarcityof raw materials, andtherepercussions of Japan'sdisengagement from the world economy-will providethe basic organizational structure. While both natural and man-madeenvironmentswill be considered, he emphasiswill be on the war's mpact onthenatural,non-humanworld:Japan's ields and forests; air andwater;flora, birds,animals, and fish. Tokeep this broadsummarymanageable,the boundariesofboth Japanand WorldWarII will be drawnnarrowly.Geographically,his essaywill consider only the Japanesehome islands (naichi). Wartime environmentalchanges in Okinawa and in the extended Japanese empire (which eventuallystretched from SakhalinandKorea, hroughmuchof Chinaand SoutheastAsia,to Micronesia and even to the AleutianIslands)wereso variedand complexas towarrantseparatetreatment.Chronologically,he focus will be on the Pacificwaryears of 1941 to 1945. During this time of total war in Japan, environmentalchange was rapid and pressure on natural resources was intense. Needless tosay,the environmental mpact of mobilization also was felt significantly in the1930S and,duringthe postwarAlliedOccupation 1945-1952), the environmentalconsequences of reconstruction were often directly continuous with wartimepatterns.As with consideration of the Japaneseempire,however,analysis of thefull sweep of the Japan's FifteenYears'War and the postwar transition arebeyondthis scope of this essay.



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296 I ENVIRONMENTAL HISTORY 8 (APRIL 2003)

DIRECTWARDAMAGECOMBATN the Japanesehome islands was limitedto the incendiarybombingofJapanesecities, the atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and some verylimited shelling of coastal targets by the U.S.Navy. Between mid-1944and theend of the war, sixty-six Japanese cities were subjected to intense Americanbombings, most of which made use of incendiary weapons designed to sparkwidespreadfires in Japan'sdensely populated, largely wood-builturban areas.This strategy proved only too successful and, in the span of just a few months,the centersof most of Japan'sargeand mid-sizedcities wereeffectivelyreducedto ashes. In one single mission, the GreatTokyoAir Raid of March1945, i6.8squaremiles of the citywereburned o the groundandmorethaneightythousandpeople died. Cumulatively,during 1944 and 1945, almost one-quarterof Japan'shousing stock was destroyedby bombs,burned n the subsequentconflagrations,or demolishedbythe Japaneseauthorities to form firebreaks; approximately30percentof the Japanesepopulationwas left homeless. No one can be sureexactlyhowmanydied in the bombings,butcertainlyhundredsof thousandsof Japanesewere killed or injuredas a result of the Americanattacks.6When one considers the tremendous costs of the incendiary bombings-inhuman life, in the resulting mass flight from the cities, in sheer physicaldestruction-it is difficult to imagine that the experiencewas anythingshort ofan environmentalnightmare.Nevertheless,when viewed from the perspectiveofthe non-humanenvironment,and when considered in the broadercontext of theenvironmentalconsequencesof the war,the bombingsof Japanesecities appearofrelatively imited andtemporary ignificance.Forexample, he raidsdestroyedapproximately178 squaremiles of Japan'shouses, schools, shops, offices, andfactories.7This is a considerableareato be sure, yet it is but a fraction of the vasttractsof Japanese orest clear-cutand scouredduringthewar,or the considerableexpanses of land and sea tainted by military facilities, mines, and industry.Moreover,mostof the areasdestroyedwerehighlyenvironmentallydegradedevenbefore the attacks: Japanese cities were (and remain) crowded, polluted, andrelatively inhospitableto nature. Parks were few, green space was minimal,and,by 1944, just about the onlyurban animal life consisted of rats, mice, and crows.As the dyspepticFrench ournalistRobertGuillainwroteof Tokyo ust beforethebombings: Thecapital stirred in its filth. A Japanesehouse rots in 2o years. Sodoesa city. Tokyo, ebuilt in 1923after the bigearthquake,was rotten.... Youcouldimagine no wayto save this capital fromcrumbling n rot and ruin except somecatastrophethat would again compel rebuilding-a purifying fire, for example,that woulddestroyit all. 8

From the ashes of 1945, Tokyoand the other devastated cities did indeedregenerateandrebuild n good order.Gardens, hacks, andmarketstalls sproutedfromthe rubble n a matterofdaysand reconstructionbeganin amatter of weeks.MillionsfledTokyo nthe daysafter the GreatAirRaid,butby1952 the populationhad returned to its 1944 peak. The housing stock was a little slower to rebound,



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but by the mid-1g5osmost of the destroyed cities had erased the scars of thebombingsandwere growingrapidly.9Theexperiencesof HiroshimaandNagasaki,at least from the environmentalstandpoint,wereremarkably imilarto those of the firebombedcities: Thetoll inhuman life and suffering was extreme and the damageto manmadestructureswas tremendous. The areas devastatedbythe atomicbombswere,however,quitesmall-five squaremiles in Hiroshima,half that in Nagasaki-and the weapons,certainlycompared o the nuclear devices developedduringthe ColdWar,wererelativelyveryweak.Residualradiation,even at the hypocenters,haddeclinedtounthreatening evels within a matter ofdays.10 erhapsmost strikingly,plantandanimal life seem to have beenirelatively unaffected by the bombs. Survivorsreportedthat mosquitoes and flies virtually disappearedafter the attacks butthattheyreturned nprofusionafter severaldays; ish in shallowpondsperished,while those in deeperpondstended to survive; he plentifulrats of the twocities,manyobserversnoted, showed few ill effects from radiation.Scientific tests byJapanese researchers confirmed these accounts: Earthworms and earwigscollected near the hypocenters showed no structuralor genetic abnormalities;aquatic insects, studied over a periodof years, lived and reproducednormally;evenexperimentalrabbitsandmice,exposedto thebomb n the labs ofHiroshimaUniversityof Literatureand Science,werefound to be in goodhealth physicallyand genetically.A surveyof fauna at the Hiroshimahypocenter n October1947foundthat animal and insect populations had fully recovered.lThe flora of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were also remarkablyresilient. In theimmediateaftermath of the attacks,worries aboutthe biologicalrecoveryof thebombsites abounded: [A.llJapanwondered hen if grass wouldevergrowagain,if a flowerwould everbloom in the earth of those twoatomizedcities. 12Althoughbamboo andrice plants were scorchedas far as five miles from the hypocenters,even trees at the center of the cities, burnedto the groundbythe blasts,began tosend out new shoots from their roots within two months. Somemalformationsoccurred among plants that sprouted close to the hypocenters, but botanistsreported hat such abnormalitieshadceasedto appearwithinthree orfouryearsafterthebombings.Ingeneral,vegetationerupted nprofusion nthe cities'ruins,with a widevariety of plants colonizing the disturbedground. By Juneof 1946,twenty-fivespecies of weeds grew thickly at the very site of the detonation inHiroshima,and scientists reportedluxuriant growthof plants that previouslyhad been rare in the area. Gardensplanted in burned-outneighborhoods alsoprospered.In 1947 it was said that the yields of wheat, eggplants, and soybeansfrom makeshift fields in Hiroshima surpassed those of neighboring farmingvillages. To he surprise of many, omatoes,whichcityresidentshadbeen unableto cultivate for decadesbecause of fungal and insect damage,flourished in theyears afterthe bombing.13ohnHerseydescribed he scene almostlyrically: Overeverything-up through the wreckage of the city, in gutters,alongthe riverbanks,tangled among tiles and tin roofing, climbing on charredtree trunks-was ablanket of fresh, vivid, lush, optimistic green; the verdancyrose even fromthe



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foundationsof ruined houses. Weedsalreadyhidthe ashes, andwild flowers wereinbloomamongthe city'sbones....Especially n acircleat the center,sickle sennagrew in extraordinary regeneration, not only standing among the charredremnants of the same plant but pushing up in new places, among bricks andthroughcracks in the asphalt.It actuallyseemed as if a loadof sickle senna seedhad been droppedalongwith the bomb. '14But this postwar vegetative revival was only short lived. As one report byHiroshima scientists concluded,not without a sense of regret: In1948, housesand buildings rapidly increased in number;and urban construction was wellunderwaybythe following year.Consequently, egetation was destroyed;andbythe endof195o,it was difficult for one to retainthe earlypost-atomicbomb magesof the city. 15In short, the atomic bombs-like the incendiaryattacks-were tremendouslyand tragically destructive for one species, homo sapiens. Whenviewed from aless anthropocentric iewpoint,however, he environmentalmplicationsofdirectcombatin JapanduringWorldWarIIare far moreambiguous.ECONOMICMOBILIZATIONDESPITETHEobvious scars left byAmericanbombing,the more indirect effectsof war-and specifically of the economic mobilizationforwar-seem to have hadthe moreprofoundconsequences for the environment in Japan.Starting in thelate 1930s, the exploitationof Japan's aturalresourcesacceleratedas the nationpreparedfor, and subsequentlyembarkedupon,total war. Theexamples of thisheightened pressure on the environmentare seemingly countless. In the yearsbeforePearlHarbor,orexample, he Japanesegovernmentaggressivelypromoteda new exportdrivein the hopes of generating much-needed oreigncurrency.Asaresult, deepsea fishing for tuna and crabwasexpandedrapidly,withthe cannedseafood sold almost entirelyto the Americanmarket.Whalingalso was steppedup.In the mid-1930s, orthe first time, Japanese ishermen venturedbeyondtheircoastal waters and sent factory ships into the Antarctic, heirwhaleoil destinedprimarily for the margarine and soap factories of Germany.In 1930, Japanaccounted foronly1percentof the world'swhalecatch;by 1938, Japanclaimed12percentofthe total andwas thelargestproducerafterEnglandandNorway. apan'sforests alsowere calleduponto helpthe nation'stradebalance.Importsof lumberandwoodpulpwere slashed fromthe early 1930s;domestic cutting was steppedup to meet internal needs and, increasingly over the decade, to be sold oninternationalmarkets.'6The Japanese government also worked assiduously to integrate Japan'seconomy-especially the agriculturalsector-more fullywith the empire.Koreanfarmers were pressed to growrice for export to Japan,even though the climateand agricultural infrastructure were not particularly well suited to ricemonoculture.In Manchuria,meanwhile, soybeanswere promoted as the crop ofchoice. Japanese farmers were encouraged to move acreage from soybeans intowheat;the wheat was exportedto the continent andManchuriansoybeans were



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imported o satisfy Japanesedemand.Theproblemsof these arrangements-whichreduced agriculturaldiversityand self-sufficiency-became apparentduringthePacific war years, when repeated crop failures in Korea and transportationbottlenecks led to serious food shortages in Japan.'7Industrial and mining development further contributed to environmentaldegradationin the mobilization for war. Air and water pollution seem to haveworsened duringthe 1930S, in stepwith the acceleratingindustrialpreparationsforwar. Prefecturalauthorities regularlyreportedcontamination issues relatedto mines,chemicalplants,starchfactories,andpapermills throughthe waryears.The Fisheries Agency of the Ministry of Agriculturerecordedover a thousandcases of industrialwaterpollutioninjurious o commercial isheries in1937alone;smoke, ash, and dust from the humming factories of Kansai choked the air ofOsaka and othermajor cities; and some facilities-such as the Kamiokasmelterof Mitsui Miningand the Minamatacomplexof Nihon Chisso,both laterprovento be majorsources of heavymetal wastes-are known to have greatlyincreasedproduction (andthe flow of toxic effluents) duringthe Pacific war.'8

The starkest exampleof the destructionwrought bymobilizationduringtheSecondWorldWarcould be found in Japan's orests. Japan s a heavily forestedcountry and historically has made extensive use of its timber resources. Evenbefore the war, many Japanese forests were heavily utilized and degraded.Charcoalwas a majorsource of fuel for homes and small industry(andvery largetracts of accessible woodlandhad long been coppicedfor charcoal and firewoodproduction);farmers also made extensive use of the organic materials on theforest floors, gathering leaves, twigs, and nuts for compost and animal feed.Forests were exploited for the needs of industrial society-for telegraph poles,railway ies, and mine supports,for building materials,wood pulp(for paper andrayon),and for countless other uses.

Through he early1930s, as much as a third ofJapan'swood, umber,and pulpneeds were satisfied by imports, largely from the Asian continent and NorthAmerica.As the state endeavoredo reduce mportdependence,however,domesticlogging increased rapidly,withthe pace heighteningeven furtherafter 1941.Thiswartime acceleration n timber production-muchof it from clear-cutold-growthforests-was drivenby the effective end of all wood imports duringthe Pacificwar,the worsening fuel shortage (which led to heavy demand for charcoal), heheightenedconsumptionof industry (especiallythe mines), and the intense needduringthe last years of the war for materials to rebuild Japan'sbombed cities.Even rees ofgreat age, beauty,and culturalsignificance-the statelyrows of pinesalongthe T6kaid6highway, he ancient avenueofcryptomeria eadingto the Nikk6Shrine-were sacrificed in the war effort. The government also promoted theaggressivereclamationofwoodlands or agriculturalproductionandordered hatthe nurseries and seedbeds used to grow saplings for reforestationprogramsbeconvertedto food crops.19

Thescale of the wartime cutting was staggering, and it was clearby the timethe Allied Occupation forces arrived that Japan's forest resources were



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dangerouslydepleted.Between1941and1945,14,000 squaremiles (or9,ooo,oooacres),about15 percent of Japan's orests, were logged. Muchof that area-overio,ooo squaremiles (6.5million acres)or aboutlo percentof Japan orests-wasclear-cut.In 1945, almost 5o squaremiles a week were clear-cut.The situationwas exacerbatedby the fact that artificial reforestation had all but groundto ahaltduringthe war, as the loss of ablelaborand the dwindlingsupplyof seedlingsmade replanting impossible.20Postwar studies confirmedthat the gap betweentimber harvestedandthe regenerationof woodlandthroughnaturalgrowthandartificial reforestationwas sobering.As one American foresterwrote in 1951 ofJapan's forestemergency, Japans rapidlyapproachingthe point where thewood needs of the nation can no longerbe met from its resources....Heavydrainto meet the needs of the populationhas changedthe characteristics of most ofthe accessible forests so nowthey show little resemblanceto the originalstands.Virginforests in largesegments ...are foundonlyon the highermountainswherethey are beyond physical or economic accessibility.The accessible forests havebeen reduced to a depletedcondition frompoor forest management,prolongedover-utilization, insufficient reforestation, soil erosion and depredation byinsects. 21

Oneofthe mostpeculiar-and, forJapan's orests,one ofthe most destructive-developmentsof the waryears was the pine root oil project.22During1944 and1945, as petroleumsupplies in Japandwindled,researchersdesperately soughtalternative sources of fuel for the warmachine. Oneof these, discoveredby Navychemists, was the distillation of high-octanemotorfuel from the resinous rootsof pine trees. Such arborealalchemyrequiredtremendous human energy andtremendous natural destruction: The productionof one gallon of pine root oilrequired2.5 man-daysof heavylaborandmanytons of freshly dugroots.Japan'simperial subjects, though exhausted from more than a decade of mobilizationandscarcity,respondeddutifully,establishing34,000 stills andsqueezing 70,000barrels of crude a month from the islands'green oil fields. Bythe end of the war,once-densepine forests lay ravaged. Monumental iles ofroots andstumps linedmanyof the roadways, ne observerreported. Mountainsideswerestrippedbareofevery ree andsapling. 23Thecruelestironywasthat suchecologicaldevastationand communal sacrifice was all for nought. Despite the official propaganda,Japanesescientists neverperfectedthe refining of pine root oil, andbarelya dropever made it into the fuel tanks of Japan'sbombersand battleships.The consequences of wartimedeforestation were complex and far-reaching.The massive loss of forest resources and numerous old-growthstands was justthe beginning of the damage. Wartime forestry practices contributed to theproliferationof dangerous pests, most notably pine bark beetles, insects whichhad little impact before 1939, but which reached epidemic proportions by theend of the war. Hasty clear cutting and dwindlingtransportationcapacity leftmany felled trees to rot on forest floors, creating optimum conditions for thebeetles'spread.Entomologistsreported hat morethan1.5millionacresof Japan'sconiferous forests had been infested by 1946.24Watercontrol was a far greater



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concern. Aggressive logging on hill- and mountainsides created considerableproblemsof erosion and uncontrollablerunoff.Streamsand riverscollectedsilt,choking downstreamreservoirs, dams, irrigation systems, and coastal deltas.Flooding,alwaysa problem n Japan,seems to have worsenedduringthe war asdeforestationanderosionweakenedthe land'snaturaldefenses againsttyphoonsand the annual snow-melt.25n short,the wartime mobilizationof Japan'sorestshad profound environmental implications that stretched far beyond thewoodlands and the coppices.ENVIRONMENTALCONSEQUENCESOF SCARCITYWHILEWARTIMEconomic andmilitarymobilizationwould seem to havebeenuniformlydamagingto Japan'sair,water, land, and forests, the environmentalconsequences of scarcity-the endemic wartime shortages of critical naturalresourcesandmanufacturedgoods-were considerablymoreambiguous.Insomecases, doingwithout-facing life deprivedof agriculturalchemicals,gasoline, orthe latest industrial technology-brought surprisingand significant benefits tothe environment.Inmany othercases, however,scarcityled simplyto a frenziedsearch for substitutes and the heightened exploitationof nature.26Fertilizer s an interesting case. Beforethe war,Japaneseagriculturewas oneof the world's most intensive users of chemical fertilizers.27Supply declinedprecipitously after 1941, as ammonia production was diverted away fromnitrogenous fertilizers and toward the munitions industry, and as imports ofphosphate rock and potash-raw materials upon which the Japanesefertilizerindustry was dependent-were suspended. Farmers,under tremendous statepressure to produce,desperatelysought alternatesources of soil nutrients.Manyturned to increased use of compost, an apparently sound, environmentallysensitive, sustainable strategy.Yetmuch of the materialto be compostedcamefrom scavenging in upland forests. All woodlands within walking distance offarming villages had their floors swept clean of leaves, needles, undergrowth,windfall,and all otherorganicmatter.Theresult of this widespreadclearingwasthat forest soils werenot replenished,slowing growth andweakening the trees.Moreover,orest litter has an importantrole in soil conservation.Without eavesand other clutter, precipitation was less easily absorbed and runoff fromwoodlands ncreased, with acceleratederosion,sedimentationof waterways,anddamagingflooding the result.28The lack of chemical amendmentsalso createdintense demand for night soil, which had long been an importantfertilizer inJapan,especially in the agriculturalareas aroundlarge cities.29Under the acutewartimeconditions, night soil was increasingly applied to fields as rawsewage,ratherthanbeing composted,as hadtraditionallybeen the commonpractice.Theresult of this unhygienicshortcut was that watersupplieswereregularly aintedby sewage-pollutedrunoff, andparasitical andbacterial infections rose both inthe countryside andthe cities.30

Japan's irds andanimals,bothwildanddomesticated,struggledforsurvivalduringthe years of wartimescarcity.Livestockthat competedwith humans for



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food suffered during the war, while those that did not tended to hold their ownand even flourish. The numbers of pigs, chickens, and rabbits on Japanese farmsplummeted, as did the number of horses, many of which were drafted into armyservice in China after 1937. Sheep, whose wool was avaluable wartime commodity,increased modestly in number, while the population of goats (a favorite ofimpoverished peoples worldwide) grew many times over. Large domestic pets,especially dogs, all but disappeared from Japan during the war and-in a well-known, heartbreaking story-most of the animals in Tokyo's Ueno Zoo had to besacrificed as safety threats and major consumers of scarce food and forage.3'

The Japanese tradition of netting and eating migratory songbirds went frombeing a regional curiosity to being a patriotic duty during World War II. Throughgruesomely efficient methods of mist-netting and bird-liming, Japanese huntersdelivered huge catches of thrushes, grosbeaks, finches, siskins, and buntings.The official wartime harvest was approximately 7.5 million songbirds per year,though even the government estimated that the actual figure was at least twiceas much. During the war, the mission of the Game Management Division of theMinistry of Agriculture turned from research and conservation to promoting therapid exploitation of Japan's wildlife resources. Guides to the most palatablespecies of song- and shorebirds were published, and a program to collect thrushfeathers for use in pillows and quilts at veterans' hospitals was introduced. It isnot surprising that, when the Allied Occupation forces arrived in Japan in 1945,they were startled to find an almost complete absence of birds-other than crowsand the occasional sparrow-everywhere in the country.32

The wartime experience of Japan's fisheries is an important counterexample.Japan was the world's greatest fishing nation prior to World War II, with morethan twice the annual production of the United States. Japanese fishermen heavilyexploited coastal waters and, by the 1930s, Japan boasted an extensive deep-seafleet as well. Crab-canning factory ships worked the Bering Sea; Japanese tunafleets combed the central and south Pacific; trawlers swept the East China, SouthChina and Yellow Seas; and Japanese whalers landed rich catches off Antarctica.The ecological pressure of Japan'sefficient deep-sea operations was intense, andsigns of depletion were obvious in many of Japan's offshore fisheries well beforethe war. Crabbers in Hokkaido and the Kuriles overfished their grounds andsuffered declining harvests in the 1930S. Tuna fishermen, meanwhile, were forcedto continually expand the range of their operations as overfishing depletedtraditionally rich areas. In the East China and Yellow Seas, at the very heart ofJapan's offshore trawling, catches declined steeply after 1931 and certain highlydesirable species (including red sea bream and several types of croaker) all butdisappeared from the fishermen's nets.33

With the start of the Pacific war, however, virtually all deep-sea fishing andwhaling came abruptly to an end. The vast majority of Japan'socean-going fishingvessels-as well as most of its skilled seamen-were drafted into war service bythe Navy. All of Japan'slarge factory ships (numbering some twenty in 1941) weredestroyed during the war, as were 95 percent of Japan's otter trawlers. But evenhad the deep-sea fleets been preserved, there would not have been sufficient



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supplies to keep them operating during the hostilities. Indeed, even coastalfisheries wereseverelyhamperedafter1941bymountingshortagesof cottonyarn,ramie, manila hemp, and,most importantly,petroleum.34Japan'swartimewithdrawal rom offshore fisheries andthe reduced ntensityof its coastal operationsseem to have had a significant effect on fish stocks inthe western Pacific. Postwar studies of certain fisheries suggested that the 1941-45 respite allowed for a measurable regeneration in some grounds and somespecies. Notably,n the once-depleted isheries of the East Chinaand YellowSeas,

Japanesetrawlers once again began landing significant catches of bream andcroaker n the late 1940S.35 Althoughthe wartime hiatus in Japanese ishing wasshort lived-by the i95os, a rebuilt and much larger Japanesefleet was busilyoverfishing all of the traditionalgrounds as well as a number of new ones-thewar thus can be said to have had a beneficial environmental mpact, at least inthe shortterm,whenit came to fisheries resources. 6 Interestingly-and perhapsnot surprisingly-researchers have found that a similar temporaryrecoveryoffish stocks took placein the northAtlanticduringWorldWarI.37It is also worthnoting that wars in general may have brought much needed relief to the fishinhabitingthewaters aroundJapan.Notonlywas the Pacificwar awelcomebreak,but in WorldWarI, Japaneseoffshore fisheries also closed up shop, as trawlerownersfoundit moreprofitableto sell their vessels to the Europeanpowersforuse as patrolboats and mine sweepers.38One additionalconsequenceof scarcity is worth considering.Theprofound,often cripplingwartimeshortages of naturalresources-especially fossil fuels-had the effect of drivingmany Japanese-fromhousewives to corporateengineersto university scientists-to new extremes of desperation, rugality,andcreativity.Onemight even suggest that, impelledby stringency, Japanese individuals andinstitutions became unconsciously more environmentallyresponsible in theirbehavior and their consumption patterns. A similar tendency was apparentinwartime Britain and the United States, although comparedat least to America,where the consumer economy actually grew during WorldWarII, the breadthand depth of scarcity was far greater in Japan.39Manyobservers, for example,have noted the ingenuity of wartimeJapanese n trying to conduct a modernwarand maintain a dignified lifestyle in the absence of many of the essential rawmaterials of twentieth-centuryindustry. Fewhave explored, however,whetherJapaneseschemes for overcomingwartimeshortages wereconsistent with whatarenow considered to be environmentallysensitive technologies andthe searchfor renewable sources of energy. The Navy, for instance, conducted extensiveexperimentationon the productionof diesel fuel from coconut oil, birch bark,pine needles, and orange peel. When the battleship Yamatomade its famoussuicide run to Okinawa n April1945, it was poweredentirely by edible refinedsoybean oil. Sweet potatoes, meanwhile,became a valuable source of aviationfuel. Ethanol, mixed in evergreaterproportionswith precious gasoline, becamethe standard n Japanesewarplanesby1944.40Inone of the weirder-andyet mostcreative-wartime experiments, Japaneseoceanographersattempted to utilizeocean currents for the transportation of food and other necessities. Scientists



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explored he shipping f soybeansfrom the continent aftertheydiscovered hatthe JapanCurrentwould carry90 percent of bottles set adriftoff the east coastof Korea to the northwest coast of Honsh'u.Plans were laid for floating smallwooden vessels and tiny armadas of metal drums (all filled with food or fuel)from as far away as Taiwan o the Japanesehome islands.41Whilethe surrendermade such plans unnecessary, they show how acute scarcity in wartime Japancould give rise to a kind of environmental consciousness and a conservationsensibility born of want.42AUTARKYAND THEENVIRONMENTTOTALWARbrought not only the destruction of combat, the pressures ofmobilization, and the rigors of deprivation, but also the oblique and oftenoverlookedcosts of national isolation. Japan'swartimedisengagement fromtheworld economy and the community of nations had complex and unexpectedenvironmental implications. At the start of the twenty-first century,internationalization and globalization often are assumed to be threats to theenvironment. Multinational corporations are viewed with suspicion byenvironmental activists, multilateral trade agreements often are seen assacrificing ecologicalconcerns,andmanynations (includingJapan)areaccused,often justifiably,of exportingtheir environmental ills to developingcountries.Such sweeping condemnations of transnational integrationarebelied, however,by the fact that Japan'swithdrawalfrom the world trading system and frommultinational agreements after the start of the Pacific war seem to have hadunfavorable nvironmentalconsequences.Inotherwords, Japan's nvironment-indeed,the world'senvironment-mayactuallyhavebeenbetteroff in many waysif Japanhad remained globalized n 1941 rather than pursuing a course ofdiplomaticisolation and economicautarky.

Twoexamples areparticularlyrevealing.The first is the case of pyrethrum.Little known today outside the ranks of organic gardeners, pyrethrum is apowerfulnatural insecticide made from the dried flowers of chrysanthemums.Prior to WorldWarII, pyrethrumwas considered the international standard incommercial insecticides and was used by homemakers and farmers around theworld, though it was utilized in a particularlyintensive fashion in the UnitedStates. Overgo percentof the prewarsupplyof driedchrysanthemumblossomscame from Japan,and the vast majorityof this production was exportedto theUnited States where it was processedinto insecticidal powders andsprays.AfterPearl Harborthe trans-Pacific trade in pyrethrum ceased. The environmentalimpactin Japanwas minimal:Landsformerlyused for growingchrysanthemumssimplywere diverted o morepressingagriculturalneeds. Butin theUnited States,the implicationsof this suddendisruptionin trade were morestriking. Americanconsumers-and especially the military,which had used pyrethrum or delousingfront-line troops-howled for the development of a suitable substitute. Whilechrysanthemumgrowingin the United States might have been considered as apossibility,it was chemists whosteppedforwardwith a solution to the pyrethrum



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crisis. Apparentsalvation came in the form of an obscure inorganic compound,identified as a potent insecticide by Swiss researchers in the late 1930s, but notimmediately marketed since it was not competitive with cheap and effectivepyrethrum products. This compound was, of course, dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane, or DDT,which became ubiquitous during World War II andnotorious environmentally n lateryears. Toadd insult to injury-and make theirony of the situation complete-after WorldWarII,Allied Occupationadvisersaggressively promotedthe use andproductionof DDT n Japan,all but assuringthat the Japanese pyrethrum industry would not rebound from the wartimerupturein globalmarkets.43

Another sobering example is the case of Japanesefur sealing. Japanbeganintensive sealing operations n the 189os, firstharvestingthemigratory ur sealsthat traveledalong the Kuriles and throughthe JapanSea,but later expandingthe hunt to therichsealrookeriesof the Aleutians andRobben sland off Sakhalin.The rapid decline of the Pacific fur seal populationwas apparentby the earlytwentieth century,and the major sealing nations (the United States, Canada,Russia, Britain,andJapan)agreedin 1911to an ambitioustreatythat mandatedstrict kill quotas,with the goal of stabilizing seal populationsandguaranteeinga sustainable sealing industryover the long term.Thetreatyprovedremarkablyand unexpectedly successful, and for almost three decades was a model ofinternational cooperationin wildlife conservation.Thesignatories for the mostpart obeyed the provisions of the agreement, and the fur seal populationsreboundedstrongly.Fromthe moment the treatywas signed,however,critics inJapan called for revisions that would allow for larger seal harvests. Owners ofsealing ships were especially vocal, but fishermen also complained, asserting(wrongly,as scientists would later prove)that fur seals ate large quantities ofvaluable fish species, especially salmon. The chorus of discontent grew throughthe 193os. Then, in October1941, after the Japanese governmenthad alreadyburned most of its international bridges, Tokyo announced the unilateralabrogationof the 19l FurSeal Convention.Nogoodstatistics exist on how manyfur seals Japanesehunters went on to slaughter during the war.During the late1930s, Japan's uotaunderthe international reaty had been aboutthree thousandseals ayear;wartimeestimates suggested that at least twice thatmanyweretakenannuallyafter1941 fromcoastal watersand that many more (perhapsas many asseventy thousand in total) were killed in the Robben Island breeding grounds.Indeed, by the end of the war, the Robben Island colony was devastated and, injust a few years, many of the ecological gains made in three decades ofinternationalcooperationwere destroyed.44 he fur seals of the northwest Pacificwere thus the unfortunate and largely forgotten victims of Japan'swartimewithdrawal rominternational diplomacyand the global economy.CONCLUSIONSAS THISbrief surveyhas suggested, the environmentalconsequences of WorldWar II in Japanwere profound, pervasive, and unpredictable. The war was



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undeniably extremely damaging to the Japaneseenvironment.Humanbeingssuffered erribly,as didsongbirdpopulations,old-growth orests,fur seal colonies,andfragilewatersheds.Yetcasually assuming that the SecondWorldWarwas asdismal a dark alley orJapan'snatural environmentas it was for the Japanesepeople is erroneous. The war was not an unmitigated disaster for Japan'senvironment.Fish stocks swelled,alternatefuel researchflourished,and the soot-belching smokestacks of many Japanesefactories were bombedinto prolongedinactivity. Although one might hesitate in borrowing JohnDower'sphrase andchristening the Pacific conflict a useful war or Japan's nvironment,one canhardly denythat the war'senvironmental mpactwas uneven, contradictory,andoften equivocal.45

Mostof the wartimeenvironmentalchanges described n this essay,eventhemost destructiveeffects of bombing, mobilization,andscarcity,turned out to beremarkably ransitory.Bombedcities werequicklyrebuilt, he Occupationbannedthe mist-netting of songbirds, mountainsides were reforested, and fishermenrapidly depletedthe waters aroundJapanonce again. In this light, it may wellhave been popular perceptions of the environment, shaped by the traumaticexperiences of mobilization andwar,that ultimatelywould have a morelastingand significant impacton Japan'spostwar landscapeand environmentalrecord.How were individual Japanese, alreadyvictimized by bombings, hunger, andincessant sacrifice, affected by a world stripped of trees and birds, a life ofscavenging for edible insects and weeds, and the backbreaking labor ofunearthing pine roots? How didthe profound stringency of the waryears shapepostwarpatternsof consumption,notions of the good ife, and attitudes towardresourceconservation, recycling,and waste? How did the wartimerelocation ofmillions of urbanites to the countryside affect perceptions of rural life,agriculture,and the land? How did wartime propagandause images of natureand shape popular impressions of the environment and Japan's particularrelationshipwith it?Onlybyaddressing such questions-and manymorebesides-will historians begin to comprehend he environmental mpact of WorldWarIIin Japanin its full complexity and long-term social, political, and ideologicalsignificance.As Paul Fussell has observed, Thedamage the war visited upon bodies andbuildings, planes and tanks and ships, is obvious. Less obviousis the damage itdid to intellect, discrimination,honesty, ndividuality, omplexity,ambiguity,andirony. Even ess obvious, one might add,were the knotty,elusive consequencesof WorldWarII forthe environment.William M. Tsutsui is associate professorofhistoryat the Universityof Kansas.He is the authorofBanking Policy in Japan Routledge, 988) andManufacturingIdeology: Scientific Management in Twentieth-Century Japan (PrincetonUniversity Press, 1998), which was awardedthe John WhitneyHall Prize of theAssociation forAsianStudies. His currentresearchfocuses on the environmentaland social historyof Japanduring the interwarperiod, WorldWarIIand theAlliedOccupation.



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NOTESThe author wishes to thank Ed Russell, Richard Tucker, Donald Worster, AdamRome, and audiences at the University of Michigan, the University of Alaska-Anchorage, and Harvard University for their comments on earlier versions of thiswork. Research on this essay was supported by grants from the General ResearchFund of the University of Kansas and the American Council of Learned Societies.i. ThomasHavens,ValleyofDarkness:TheJapanesePeopleand WorldWar I(NewYork:

Norton, 1978), 6.2. Inadditionto Havens'sValleyof Darkness,Ben-AmiShillony'sPolitics and Culture nWartimeJapan(Oxford:ClarendonPress, 1981)was another path-breakingvolume.Many of the most valuablesources in English on Japan'swartimeexperienceremainworkspublishedin the immediateaftermath of WorldWarII.3. Importantrecent works include JohnDower,Japan n Warand Peace (NewYork:TheNewPress, 1993);NoguchiYukio,1940-nen taisei, saraba senjikeizai (Tokyo:T6y6keizai shimp6sha, 1995);OkazakiTetsujiand OkunoMasahiro, eds., GendaiNihonkeizai shisutemu no genryO Tokyo:Nihon keizai shinbunsha, 1993);and EricPauer,ed.,Japan'sWarEconomy London:Routledge,1999).4. Two mportantrecent workswhichexamine war andthe environment n EastAsia areJuliaThomas, ReconfiguringModernity: Concepts of Nature in Japanese PoliticalIdeology(Berkeley:Universityof CaliforniaPress, 2001), chap.8; and RuthRogaski,

Nature,Annihilation,andModernity:China'sKoreanWarGerm-WarfarexperienceReconsidered, ournal of Asian Studies 61 (May2002), 381-415.Thomasfocuses onthe meanings and uses of nature n Japaneseultranationalistideology.5. See, forexample,ArthurWesting, Warfare n a FragileWorld:MilitaryImpacton theHumanEnvironment London:TaylorandFrancis,1980); ArthurWesting, EcologicalConsequences of the Second Indochina War(Stockholm: Stockholm InternationalPeace Institute and Almqvist and Wiksell, 1976); BarryWeisberg, ed., Ecocide inIndochina:TheEcologyof War San Francisco:CanfieldPress, 1970).6. Havens,ValleyofDarkness,176-82;JohnDower,EmbracingDefeat: apan n the Wakeof WorldWar I (NewYork:Norton,1999),45-48;ShigeharaTerusaku,Tokyokashoka

no hyakugojO-nichi Tokyo:Taihei shuppansha, 1974); GordonDaniels, TheGreatTokyoAirRaid,9-10 March1945 n ModernJapan:AspectsofHistory,LiteratureandSociety,ed. W. G.Beasley (Tokyo:CharlesTuttle,1976).7. Kenneth Werrell,Blankets of Fire: U.S.Bombers over Japanduring WorldWarII(Washington:SmithsonianInstitution Press, 1996),226. Forthe sake of comparison,in 2000, the approximateareaof the city ofAlbuquerque,NewMexico,was 18o squaremiles; of the city of Indianapolis,Indiana,360 squaremiles.8. Robert Guillain, I Saw TokyoBurning, trans. William Byron (Garden City, N.Y.:Doubleday, 981),1i8. Guillain,whowasconsistently criticalof Japanandthe Japanesein his wartimewritings fromTokyo,mayhaveexaggerated he decrepitudeofJapanesecities, even in the straitenedcircumstances of war. In any case, eventhe most cynicalplanners of the U.S.bombingcampaign did not rationalizetheir incendiary attacksas a form of urbanrenewalforJapan.9. Tokyohyakunenshi henshfi iinkai, ed., Tokyohyakunenshi,vol. 6 (Tokyo:Tokyo-to,1972),chap.4; Tokyo-toensaishi (Tokyo: okyo-to, 953),chap.6;EdwardSeidensticker,TokyoRising:TheCitySince the GreatEarthquake Tokyo:CharlesTuttle,1990),155-64,165-67.RobertGuillaineven adopteda botanicalmetaphor forthe reconstructionof Japanesecities: Tokyowouldsprout like grass, like a forest. On he field of ash andtwisted steel into which that capital of unpaintedwood had dissolved, three millionpeoplewere alreadybusy. See, Guillain,I Saw TokyoBurning,281.



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10. Committee orthe Compilationof Materialson Damage Causedby the AtomicBombsin Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Hiroshima and Nagasaki: The Physical, Medical, andSocial Effects of the AtomicBombings,trans. Ishikawa Eisei and David Swain (NewYork:Basic Books, 1981), 55, 73-79. The release of radiation in the 1986 Chernobylnuclear accident was several hundred times greaterthan that of the Hiroshima andNagasaki atomic bombs. J. R. McNeill, Something New Under the Sun: AnEnvironmentalHistoryof the Twentieth-CenturyWorldNewYork:Norton,2ooo), 312.

11. Committee or the Compilationof Materials onDamageCausedbythe AtomicBombs,Hiroshima and Nagasaki, 80-3; a number of detailed studies are presented inGenshibakudan aigai ch6sa hokokushu,vol. ' (Tokyo:Nihon gakujutsu shinkokai,1953), especially 217-25, 247-63, 281-3.

12. Guillain,I Saw TokyoBurning,240.13. Committee or the Compilationof Materials on DamageCausedbythe AtomicBombs,Hiroshima and Nagasaki, 83-6; Genshibakudan saigai ch6sa h6kokushu, vol. i,

especially 118-9, 225-41, 263-80.14. John Hersey, Hiroshima(1946; reprint, New York:Vintage Books, 1989), 69-70.i5. Committee or the Compilationof Materials onDamageCausedby the AtomicBombs,HiroshimaandNagasaki,86.16. Onthe offshore fishing industry,see TheJapaneseTunaFisheries (Tokyo:Supreme

Commanderfor the Allied Powers, Natural Resources Section Report 104, 1948);CannedCrabIndustry of Japan (Tokyo:SupremeCommander or the Allied Powers,NaturalResources SectionReport109,1948). Onwhaling, Japanese WhalingIndustryPriorto 1946 (Tokyo:SupremeCommanderor the AlliedPowers,Natural ResourcesSection Report 126, 1950); Bjorn Basberg, Convergenceor National Styles? TheJapanese Challengeto the British-Norwegian Hegemony in the Twentieth-CenturyWhalingIndustry n GlobalMarkets:TheInternationalizationof the Sea TransportIndustries Since1850,ed. DavidStarkeyand GelinaHarlaftis St John's,Newfoundland:InternationalMaritime EconomicHistory Association, 1998), 259-83.Onlumberandgeneral aspects of economic mobilization in the 1930S, see Jerome Cohen, Japan'sEconomy n Warand Reconstruction(Minneapolis:Universityof Minnesota Press,1949).

17. B. F.JohnstonwithHosodaMosaburoandKusumiYoshio,JapaneseFoodManagementin WorldWar I (Stanford,Calif.:StanfordUniversity Press, 1953),especially chap. 8.i8. Anoverviewofpollutionproblems nthe 1930S is presented nKamiokaNamiko,Nihonnok6gaishi (Tokyo: ekaishoin, 1987), 75-103. Specificinstances of wartimepollutionaredescribedin River Controland Utilization in Japan Tokyo:SupremeCommanderfor the Allied Powers, Natural Resources Section Report 149, 1951), 104-112; O'Neill,SomethingNewUnder heSun,95-96,138-9;MargaretMcKean,EnvironmentalProtestand Citizen Politics in Japan(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981), 45-50;TimothyGeorge,Minamata:PollutionandtheStruggle forDemocracyinPostwarjapan(Cambridge,Mass.: HarvardUniversityAsia Center,2001), chaps. i and2.

19. Reforestationin Japan (Tokyo:Supreme Commander or the Allied Powers, NaturalResources Section Report 113, 1948), 15-16, 32-34; Kiyosawa Kiyoshi, A Diary ofDarkness, trans. Eugene Soviak and Kamiyama Tamie (Princeton, N.J.:PrincetonUniversity Press, 1999), 11, 63.

20. Reforestation n Japan,19-31.Onwartimeforestry,see also Nihonringy6 hattatsushihensaniinkai,ed., Nihonringy6hattatsushi:ngyo ky6ko,senji t6seikinokatei(Tokyo:Nihon sanrin kai, 1983).

21. Forestryin Japan, 1945-51 (Tokyo: Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers, NaturalResources Section Report153, 1951), 81, 21.22. Foran overview of the pine root oil project, see Cohen, Japan'sEconomy,147-8;anexcellent summary of the technology of the project is provided by Miscellaneous



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LANDSCAPES IN THE DARK VALLEY 1 309

Targets: apanese Fuels and Lubricants,Article4, Pine Root OilProgram Tokyo:U.S.NavalTechnicalMission to JapanReportX-38(N)-4,February1946).23. Cohen, Japan's Economy, 147.24. BarkBeetle Epidemic n Japan (Tokyo:Supreme Commander or the Allied Powers,

Natural Resources Section Report 90,1947).25. C.J.Kraebel,Forestryand Flood Control n Japan Tokyo: upremeCommander ortheAllied Powers,NaturalResources Section PreliminaryReport39, July1950).See alsoRiverControland Utilizationin Japan.26. Susan Hanley has argued that TokugawaJapan i6oo-i868) was a resource-efficientculture : TheTokugawa olutions to limited resourcesenabledthe Japanese o reacha high level of civilization using a minimum of resources, and whereverpossible,natural,renewablematerials. See, SusanHanley,EverydayThings n Premodern apan:

TheHiddenLegacyofMaterialCultureBerkeley:Universityof CaliforniaPress, 1997),75. Hanley does not explore in detail what specific legacies of this economicalpreindustrial ifestyle may haveremainedsignificant in mid-twentieth-century apan.Theanguishedresponse of many Japanese o wartimescarcity suggests that Japaneseculture hadgrownsignificantlyless resource fficient duringthe half-centurysincethe start of industrialization.27. Cohen,Japan'sEconomy,365-6.28. Fertilizer Practices in Japan:A PreliminaryReport(Tokyo:Supreme Commander orthe Allied Powers,NaturalResources Section Report93,1947); WalterLowdermilk,WaterResources and Related Land Uses in Japan (Tokyo:SupremeCommander orthe Allied Powers, NaturalResources Section PreliminaryReport 70, January1952),22-23.29. OnJapanesenight soil practices, see Hanley,EverydayThings,110-15;AnneWalthall,VillageNetworks:SBdaiand the Sale of Edo Nightsoil, MonumentaNipponica43(Autumn 988).Japan'swartimepreoccupationwith nightsoil was suchthat the CentralYoshimuraKiyohisa,K6tBhiyr6gaku(Tokyo: eibid6 shoten, 1943),1o9-11o; FertilizerPracticesin Japan,54.

SocialGroup Japanese)Middle- Average AverageSubstance Farmers Merchants Class Soldiers Japanese EuropeanOfficials

Water 95.290 95.310 94.510 94.410 95.000 93.50Organic 3.030 3.180 3.890 4.070 3.400 5.10MatterAsh 1.68o 1.510 i.6oo 1.520 i.6oo 1.40Nitrogen 0.550 0.590 0.570 0.796 0.570 0.70Potash 0.290 o.28o 0.240 0.207 0.270 0.21Phosphoric o.16 0.133 0.152 0.297 0.134 o.26cid

30. FertilizerPractices in Japan,32-34;see also, Crawford ams, Medic .TheMission ofan American Military Doctor in Occupied Japan and Wartorn Korea (Armonk, N.Y.:M.E. Sharpe, 1998), 92-96.



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310 j ENVIRONMENTAL HISTORY 8 (APRIL 2003)

31. Japanese Cropand LivestockStatistics, 1878-1 950 (Tokyo:SupremeCommanderorthe Allied Powers, Natural Resources Section Report 143, 1951), 121-33; AkiyamaMasami, D6butsuen no Showashi (Tokyo:Detahausu, 1995).KiyosawaKiyoshi notedmatter-of-factlyn his diary entryfor24June1943 that Thisspring in Minami-Azumiin Shinshiu, heykilled all the dogs andpresented he hides to the army. ee, Kiyosawa,Diary of Darkness, 42.

32. Mist Netting for Birds in Japan(Tokyo:SupremeCommander or the Allied Powers,NaturalResources Section Report88,1947); Wildlife Conservation n Japan (Tokyo:Supreme Commander or the Allied Powers,Natural Resources Section Report i16,1948), 22-23; Japanese Ornithologyand Mammology During World WarII (Tokyo:SupremeCommander or the Allied Powers,Natural Resources Section Report102,1948), 9.

33. KuwataToichi,Suisan Nihon (Tokyo:Dai Nihon yuibenkaik6dansha, 1942);KuwataToichi, GaikanNihon suisanshi (Tokyo:Umi to sora sha, 1943);CannedCrab ndustryof Japan, 16, 19; TheJapanese TunaFisheries, 5, 49; Francois Bourgois, JapaneseOffshore Trawling (Tokyo: Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers, NaturalResources Section Report 138, 1950), 8. Ondepletion of whale stocks, see JapaneseWhalingIndustryPrior to 1946, 26ff.34. Fisheries Programsin Japan,1945-51 (Tokyo:Supreme Commanderfor the AlliedPowers,NaturalResourcesSectionReport152,1951), 9-13;see also Japan's Big FishingCompanies(Tokyo:Supreme Commander or the Allied Powers,Natural ResourcesSection Preliminary Report 5, March 1947).35. Bourgois, JapaneseOffshoreTrawling,52.36. See GeorgBorgstrom,Japan'sWorldSuccess in Fishing(London:Fishing News,1964),especially chap.1; Fisheries Programs in Japan, 1945-51, 10-12.37. Westing, Warfaren a Fragile World, 54.38. Bourgois, JapaneseOffshoreTrawling, .39. Paul Fussell, Wartime (NewYork: OxfordUniversity Press, 1989), 195-207; SusanStrasser, Wasteand Want:A SocialHistoryof Trash NewYork:MetropolitanBooks,1999), 229-63.40. JapaneseFuelsandLubricants-Article , NavalResearchon AviationGasoline Tokyo:U.S. Naval Technical Mission to Japan Report X-38(N)-2,February1946); History ofMission (Tokyo:U.S. Naval TechnicalMission to Japan,November1946),12-13.Criticshave noted that the production of alternative fuels can have negative ecologicalimpacts, especially if previously unexploited land (such as forests or wetlands) isreclaimed or the cultivation of biofuel inputs. While an ecological accounting ofbiofuels is beyond the scope of this essay, it is apparent that wartime Japanesescientists were exploringalternative fuel technologies that are now consideredto beenvironmentallyresponsible by many,including the U.S.Department of Energy, orthe renewability, ustainability,andreduced emissions that they promise.

41. History of Mission, 11.42. AdamRomenotes, for example, that wartime fuel shortages stimulated interest in

solar housing in the United States, but that the postwar return to plenty and arejuvenatedmass consumption economy stunted the further development of suchenvironmentally ensitivetechnologies.AdamRome,TheBulldozerinthe Countryside:SuburbanSprawland the Rise ofAmericanEnvironmentalism NewYork:CambridgeUniversity Press, 2001), 45-86.43. Onthe prewarpyrethrum ndustryin Japan, ee Pyrethrum in Japan (Tokyo: upremeCommander or the AlliedPowers,NaturalResources SectionReport78,1947). Onthedevelopment of DDTand its wartime adoption in the United States, see EdmundRussell, Warand Nature:Fighting Humans and Insects with Chemicals from WorldWar I to Silent Spring (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001). On the



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introduction of DDT nto Japanand the postwarpyrethrum ndustry, see YoshikuniIgarashi, Bodies of Memory:Narratives of War n Postwar Japanese Culture,1945-1970 (Princeton,N.J.:PrincetonUniversityPress, 2ooo), 65-72;Sams, Medic, 14, 4-85, 138; Hosono Shigeo, Yushutsun6sanbutsu to shite no jochOgiku Tokyo:N6gy6s6g6 kenkyui kank6kai, 1950).

44. Japanese FurSealing (Tokyo:Supreme Commander or the Allied Powers, NaturalResources Section Report 129, 1950). For an excellent overview of the background toandnegotiation of the 1911Fur Seal Convention, ee KurkpatrickDorsey,TheDawnofConservationDiplomacy:U.S.-CanadianWildlifeProtectionTreaties n theProgressiveEra(Seattle:Universityof Washington Press, 1998), chaps.4-5.

45. Dower, Japan in Warand Peace, 9-32.46. Fussell, Wartime,x.

environmental history of wartime japan

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