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By Kyoko Hasegawa, Agence France-Presse
YAMAGATA, Japan: With a smile on her tanned
face, skiier Kazumi Furukawa can vividly recall the time three years
ago she stood here on Mount Zao and looked down at fir trees turned
into glittering crystals.
“The sky was cobalt blue and I could see the
tiny snow crystals on the tips of the tree branches,” Furukawa,
56, remembers.
But these days the natural phenomenon is growing
rarer and scientists say the culprit is beyond Japan’s
control—industrial pollution from China.
Mount Zao is whipped every year by wet winds
from across the Sea of Japan (East Sea) that form layers of ice and
snow that shine like crystals. The Japanese call them “juhyo,”
or ice trees.
Skiiers from Japan and other Asian nations
regularly fly to the 1,600-metre (5,280-foot) mountain just for a
glimpse of the juhyo, which local people describe as little monsters
for their intricate twisted shapes.
Fumitaka Yanagisawa, an assistant professor of
Yamagata University who has studied the juhyo for nearly two
decades, warns that the frost is increasingly mixed with acid,
spelling danger for the trees’ future.
This year he recorded the highest yet levels of
acid, “which could have severe ramifications on the eco-system,”
he said.
Looking at satellite data, he and another
professor, Junichi Kudo of Tohoku University, concluded that the
acid in the trees came from sulfur produced at factories in
China’s Shanxi province.
Since he first wrote about his research in a
scientific journal in 2006, elementary school teachers have asked
him to give lectures to local children.
“It’s hard to explain this kind of
scientific evidence to children, but finally they seem to come up
with the same question: ‘What are you going to do about the
problem?’” Yanagisawa said.
He regretted that he had no good answer.
“The pollution comes from outside Japan.
There’s a limit to what local residents here can do,” he said.
Mount Zao is only one example of pollution
hitting Japan from China, where factory emissions are causing
international concern as its economy soars ahead.
Some schools in southern Japan and South Korea
have occasionally curbed activities because of toxic chemical smog
from China’s factories or sand storms from the Gobi Desert caused
by rampant deforestation.
Environmental ministers of China, Japan and
South Korea agreed last year to look jointly at the problem, but
Tokyo has accused Beijing of secrecy.
“About yellow sand, I am not quite sure how
and why it can be regarded as a national secret,” Japanese
environment minister Ichiro Kamoshita said in February.
Blaming others
Yanagisawa remembers making a presentation on
his academic findings at a Chinese university in the early 1990s.
“When I suggested the possibility that Japan
was being hurt by cross-border pollution from China, the whole
audience booed my speech,” he said with a bitter smile.
“Even now, it’s a sort of taboo to mention
cross-border pollution when I’m invited to give a speech in
China,” he said.
Japanese officials say they are hoping to
cooperate on the environment with Beijing, as Tokyo has been trying
to repair ties after years of friction.
“It will have adverse effects if we push China
too much on cross-border pollution,” said Reiko Sodeno, an
environmental ministry official who has observed past bilateral
talks.
“Blaming other countries wouldn’t help to
solve the problem, as it only hurts national pride,” she said.
She said the goal was for Asian nations to come
up with a treaty on long-range transboundary air pollution similar
to agreements in place among European and North American nations.
Japan also suffered terrible air and water
pollution as it built itself into the world’s second largest
economy, but the situation has been improving since regulations were
imposed in the 1970s.
China has taken steps to clean up its air to
avoid international embarrassment at the Beijing Games in August
after a warning from the International Olympic Committee.
“I have high hopes that in this year of the
Olympics for China that Beijing will cooperate in international
efforts towards cutting emissions of air pollutants,” she said.
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