The Yomiuri Shimbun
The government is expected to make greater efforts to preserve and more effectively use uninhabited islands in its control, including remote border islands, in an effort to strengthen Japan's exclusive economic zone (EEZ) around them, sources said Saturday.
While there has been friction between Japan and neighboring countries over maritime interests, the government plans to enlist fishermen to protect the islands by sending them to patrol the areas, they said.
The government also aims to use the islands as outposts for meteorological observatories, fisheries and the development of ocean energy and mineral resources, according to the sources.
The Headquarters for Ocean Policy, led by Prime Minister Taro Aso, likely will map out the basic policy to preserve and control isolated islands for ocean management as early as this summer. It would be the nation's first comprehensive policy for the preservation and effective use of such islands.There are 6,852 islands that make up Japan, with all but five of them--Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu, Shikoku and the main island of Okinawa--defined as remote.
The Solitary Islands Development Law stipulates state support for inhabited islands, but the government has effectively neglected 6,425 islands that are uninhabited for many years.
However, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea stipulates that pieces of land at sea can be defined as islands--as opposed to just rocks--if the places are capable of sustaining human habitation or economic life.
With China taking advantage of the law to preserve and use waters and islands while effectively making a national strategy of using uninhabited islands, the government considers it is as advantageous to take steps to preserve and make use of isolated islands in Japan's territory, the sources said.
The government plans to work toward the practical application of preservation research projects such as power generation by ocean tides and greater protection of coral from erosion, especially at Okinotorishima island in Ogasawaramura, Tokyo--the southernmost tip of Japan that is at risk of becoming submerged. In 2004, China began to claim that Okinotorishima is a not an island but a rock as defined under the Convention on the Law of the Sea.
The government also plans to start taking such measures for other isolated islands. It will cooperate with fisheries cooperative associations by soliciting their ideas for protecting and making effective use of the islands, the sources said.
With regard to the development of resources, the government has been studying ways to use the islands as bases for research in concert with private companies as there could be abundant undersea resources such as natural gas and methane hydrate in the EEZ.
The U.N. convention also stipulates that a coastal state can claim developmental rights to seabed resources as long as the resources lie on the continental shelf belonging to the country's EEZ, which stretches 200 nautical miles (about 370 kilometers) from the country's shores.
In addition, the government plans to make use of such isolated islands for fishing activities and as seaweed beds, with islands that have coral reefs being potentially good fishing areas. It also plans to establish facilities for vessels to take refuge in case of emergency.
For inhabited islands, meanwhile, the government has been working on upgrading infrastructure and securing transportation on the islands.
The government plans to further improve the living conditions on inhabited islands to encourage more people to settle on them, as it fears inhabited islands could be used as stopovers in smuggling operations into Japan or that other security problems could occur if such islands are left abandoned.
(Jan. 25, 2009)
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