A recently founded organization on Okinawa is attempting to hold to account the powers-that-be for the damage that military contamination is causing the island's environment.
Established this year by Masami Kawamura, the Informed-Public Project (IPP) seeks to bring transparency to the often murky dealings between the national governments of the United States and Japan, as well as Okinawa's prefectural authorities.
"Tokyo is officially supposed to act as a go-between, delivering Okinawa's requests to the U.S. side," Kawamura says. "However, the Japanese government sometimes works in dishonest ways that distort or minimize Okinawans' will. What's worse is the prefecture's failure to oversee these exchanges."