Modern History of Japan Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

neo History of lacquer - Essay ExampleJapan is known worldwide as the nation with the roughly serious environmental pollution. Japans environmental destruction started long before the emergence of the inelegants modernization and industrialization period. The well-known example of early pollution problem was Ashio copper mine, which began its corrosive operations at the end of the nineteenth century and continues to this day to be a pervasively indissoluble problem. The Ashio mine, in Tochigi, has been in existence at least since 1600 when it belonged to the Tokugawa shogunate with annual production capacity of close 1,500 tons. It became privately owned in 1871 following the industrialization initiated by the Meiji restoration. In 1877 it became the property of Furukawa Ichibei, and by the eighties production had increased dramatically, reaching 4,090 tons by 1885, 78 % of the total output of the Furukawa mines and 39 % of Japans copper production.The major pollution problem associated with Ashio Copper Mine was the destruction of water ecosystem collect to copper poisoning of ground water ca manipulationd by flooding and drainage. In 1884, massive tree blighting occurred because of a discovery of large copper ore load. In August 1885, massive fish kills in the Watarase River was observed because of the use of the steam-operated pump and rock-crushing machines in Ani mine. In August 1890, 1,600 hectares of farmland and 28 towns and villages in Tochigi and Gunma prefectures were heavily damaged by the floodwater, which contained poisons from the Ashio mine. In September 1896, a massive flood due to heavy rain damaged the single large city, five prefectures, twelve provinces, and 136 towns and villages over a total area of 46,723 hectares by the water-borne mine poisons.