A Sustainable Well-Being Initiative: Social Divisions and the Recovery Process in Minamata, Japan

Abstract

In Japan, national development strategy has been based on industrial development. Over the last 140 years Japan has shifted its economic structure from agriculture to industry and service sectors. However, this strategy has incurred costs as well as benefits. From the late 1950s to the 1980s, Minamata City, a small city in Kyushu, suffered the worst industrial pollution case caused by organic mercury in the world. Many residents came down with Minamata disease, a severe neurological syndrome, which ruined their lives socially, economically, and culturally, and created pervasive social divisions among local residents as well as discrimination by people outside the city. However, in 2008, Minamata City was chosen as one of the six leading environmental model cities in Japan. This chapter focuses on this dramatic turnaround by focusing on keys critical for this change: local leadership, government policy, citizen's actions, and Jimotogaku (a neighborhood study method).