TOKYO, Japan (31 Aug 2005) -- The same Japanese fisheries officials behind Japan's commercial whaling agenda are now planning to spend millions on a scheme to expand the nation's exclusive economic zone (EEZ). Backed by Tokyo's ultranationalist mayor Shintaro Ishihara and financed in part by private right-wing extremist groups, the plan involves reinforcing two small rocks with massive amounts of concrete and various devices designed to expand the size of the rocks. In addition, Japan's coast guard has been authorized to build a lighthouse on one of the rocks. Technically part of Tokyo, the Okinotorishima rocks are located about 1,000 kilometers south of Tokyo, an area of strategic importance to China. The Chinese dispute Japan's claim and international experts on oceanic law and territorial issues have said that China's challenge is valid. In 1982, the United Nations Law of the Sea, which is adhered to by 147 countries and territories, specified that nations can have an EEZ around islands that have inhabitants, or some self-sustaining economic activity. Okinotorishima, which means island of the sea birds, is neither inhabited nor supports any economic activity. The combined area of the above surface part of the two rocks is equivalent to a tiny Tokyo apartment. Because the island has to be natural to qualify under the United Nations Law of the Sea, Japanese scientists are conducting research into schemes that would speed up "natural island building processes". | | Scuba diving off Okinotori-shima? Careful--the concrete is sturdy but the rock (if you can find it) is extremely fragile. So far scientists have proposed sinking hundreds, or if needed, thousands of concrete flower boxes around the rocks to accelerate coral growth and ultimately sand. Another proposal involves artifical turf spread on the ocean floor around the rocks to attract large numbers of Foraminifera, hard-shelled microscopic organisms that turn into sand after they die. Whatever island building scheme Japan's ultranationalists finally approve, they concede it could take a century or more to build an EEZ compliant island provided Chinese military exercises in the area don't tip over the flowerboxes. © CDNN - CYBER DIVER NEWS NETWORK |
