Plucking the resonant strings of a tonkori — a broad, sword-shaped instrument that’s been played by the Indigenous Ainu people for generations — Oki Kano, a Japanese musician of Ainu descent transformed a club in Kyoto into a vibrant tapestry of sound, mixing together rock, Ainu folk and dub music as part of a tour earlier this spring.
Refusing to be labeled an activist, Kano has woven his rebellious spirit and a nod to Indigenous rights into his music, which moved anti-nuclear activists following the 2011 Fukushima disaster. Perhaps most notably, he made a speech at a United Nations meeting later that year that clued some people into the issue of using Indigenous land for nuclear plants and waste storage.
Nuclear energy and waste are “a poison,” Kano says, that don’t fit into the philosophy of Ainu people, the Indigenous group which inhabited Hokkaido before it was annexed in 1869 by imperial Japan.
These days, Indigenous land rights have added another layer to the division of opinions in Suttsu and Kamoenai, two wind-blown fishing communities in the prefecture, over whether to host a permanent underground repository for Japan’s nuclear waste. Residents of the two municipalities, with fewer than 4,000 people combined, have expressed conflicting views on the prospect after their respective mayors volunteered for a feasibility study on the prospect in a bid to secure all-important subsidies.
‘An Ainu problem’
Kano’s U.N. speech regarding Hokkaido and Japan’s nuclear energy inspired American scholar ann-elise lewallen, a professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, specializing in modern Japan studies and Indigenous and environment rights, to start a yearslong research project into how a potential nuclear waste dumping ground in ancestral Ainu land might violate their rights.
Although there are no current Ainu communities in these two villages, the professor told The Japan Times during her research trip in Hokkaido that any energy decisions in the prefecture are “an Ainu problem” because of land rights issues. The professor decapitalizes her name as a gesture toward resisting hierarchy.
Vocal opponents like Kano aside, Ainu people have not raised the issue of nuclear waste en masse, with many more focused on salmon fishing rights. Still, lewallen says their consent is essential under United Nations principles to protect Indigenous rights. Without it, Japan is carrying out what she calls “energy colonialism.”
In 2007, Japan was among the 143 countries that voted in favor of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People. The declaration states that governments shall “take effective measures” to “ensure that no storage or disposal of hazardous materials shall take place in the lands or territories of Indigenous people without their free, prior and informed consent.”
But the declaration is nonbinding and Japanese law does not currently recognize the Ainu peoples' rights to Hokkaido's land, an issue that is currently a focal point in a high-profile court case over salmon fishing rights.
It was only in March when the absence of Ainu consent on the nuclear waste study was mentioned for the first time during a meeting held by the Nuclear Waste Management Organization of Japan (NUMO) with Suttsu residents about the site, anti-nuclear activist and Suttsu resident Kazuyuki Tutiya said.
Nobuyuki Kawashima, spokesperson for the nuclear waste authority NUMO, said the organization would be open to address Ainu people’s concerns if raised, but stopped short of promising to obtain consent.
The Hokkaido government’s Ainu Policy Division said while currently there’s no Ainu-specific measures on nuclear energy or waste, it stands with the prefecture’s opposition to dumping nuclear waste on the island.
The Ainu were nearly the sole inhabitants of Hokkaido prior to Japan’s annexation but number less than 20,000 now. Like many places in Hokkaido, the names Suttsu and Kamoenai come from the Ainu language, according to Hiroshi Maruyama, director of the Sapporo-based Centre for Environmental and Minority Policy Studies. “They feel closer to the land than Japanese settlers,” he said.
Still, reaction to the idea of hosting a permanent nuclear waste storage site has been mixed.
Fumio Kimura, an Ainu activist in Hokkaido, said that “any nuclear waste on our land is horrible and our right to the land shouldn’t be neglected.”
“Japanese people robbed our land, so why can’t we make our voice heard?” he asked.
But Kazuaki Kaizawa, secretary-general of the government-funded Ainu Association of Hokkaido has a different view. He said that, as Hokkaido has been part of Japan for over a hundred years, land rights are no longer feasible.
While storing nuclear waste is against Ainu philosophy, Kaizawa said that can’t be fully applied in a world that is post-industrialization. “The downside of any energy source is part of modernization. It’s not only an issue Ainu are facing, but the whole of Japan and humanity.”
Nuclear ambitions
Nuclear power once held a crucial position in resource-poor Japan’s energy mix, with nuclear power seen as a clean alternative to imports of fossil fuels and a way to ensure energy independence.
After the 2011 meltdowns at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, the world’s worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl, all of Japan’s nuclear power stations were shut down while new safety standards were drawn up. Well over a decade on, only 14 of its 54 reactors have been restarted.
But as memories of Fukushima fade for some and global energy prices skyrocket, support for nuclear is again growing in Japan. In 2014, polls suggested 16% of Japanese people wanted an immediate phase-out of nuclear power but in 2024 that figure was just 5%.
With this in mind, earlier this year Japan announced a contentious plan to boost nuclear energy in its mix from its current level of 8.5% to 20% by 2040, back up to its pre-Fukushima levels, as the country strives to realize its net-zero goal by 2050.
Waste dumping ground
Waste has always been an issue for nuclear power.
When used up, the uranium rods that produce nuclear energy need to be disposed of. The rods are highly radioactive and hot, so they are usually buried — permanently — deep underground.
This waste is currently being stored at an interim facility in Aomori Prefecture — despite some local opposition. This facility can only house the waste for 50 years and, despite less reliance on nuclear energy after the Fukushima disaster, 80% of the storage space was filled as of 2023.
There had been a plan to reprocess the waste to recycle the energy, but the opening of the plant that would process the waste has faced delays and research took a hit after 2011, rendering the future of nuclear waste murky.
Jacopo Buongiorno, professor of nuclear science and engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said that, although storing waste is “actually pretty straightforward,” it is also often highly controversial around the world. He added that current technology can prevent leakages of high-level waste after they go underground, as long as the assessment for a site is done right.
Takeshi Kuramochi, a climate policy researcher at the NewClimate Institute, said the waste issue is a “showstopper” for nuclear development and that, if Japan fails to meet its nuclear targets, it will likely resort to fossil fuels to fill the gap.
To convince local governments to volunteer to store it under their land, the Japanese government offered ¥2 billion ($14 million) to any municipality that consented to literature surveys, which include a deep study of past earthquake records.
If the municipality is deemed to be a suitable site for storage, a further ¥7 billion will be paid out for entering the four-year second stage of the site selection process. The last stage, which lasts for 14 years, will see a more detailed assessment with test tunnels and mock facilities, but the subsidy amount has yet to be determined.
Divided villages
On visits to both villages in May, the nuclear waste issue was at the top of peoples’ minds, although opinions on it differed sharply.
Dotted with worn-down houses along a wavy coastline, the streets of Kamoenai were nearly deserted.
At the tourist information center where she works, bespectacled Taeko Toritani said that “nuclear waste isn’t a big deal, but it has to be safe.” Besides, she added, “It’s set in stone already so no point in opposing.”
Tazunori Sato, a silver-haired sushi chef, said the subsidy for the first stage helped with repairs of the fishing pier. Living near the Tomari nuclear plant for years has made villages accustomed to staying near nuclear facilities, so most people aren’t too concerned, he added.
But an hour’s drive away in Suttsu, where one of the first wind farms in Japan was built, opinions were more polarized. Electrical store owner Noriyuki Tana noted that the money helps the village pay for resources like a dormitory for nursing workers and a school. Asked about Ainu land rights in Hokkaido and their consent of the site, he disputed the Indigenous people’s ownership of the land and said they have no right to chime in on the villages’ decisions because they are all Japanese.
But Nobuka Miki, co-chair of a group fighting against nuclear waste and a mother to a teenage daughter, is worried that an underground disposal site would harm future generations and the reputation of the village's seafood industry.
Her view echoes that of Shaun Burnie, a nuclear specialist with Greenpeace East Asia. Burnie said nuclear waste containers would not be able to remain shut for tens of thousands of years — the amount of time the radioactivity in high-level waste needs to become neutralized. He added that any leakages or contamination of groundwater can lead to exposure to humans.
Suttsu’s nuclear fate may well be decided at the ballot box through November’s mayoral elections. The current pro-waste mayor, who declined to be interviewed, is likely to be challenged by anti-waste 41-year-old Shingo Ogushi.
Ogushi came to Suttsu in his early 30s to study the local cherry trout, but in 2020, in order to challenge the mayor’s decision to volunteer for the site study, he quit his government job and eventually became a district counselor. He is concerned that a pier might have to be built to transport nuclear waste to the village, which could disturb the marine ecosystem and the fishing industry. NUMO has said that marine transportation is preferable if Suttsu is chosen for a nuclear waste facility.
Ogushi added that Ainu people’s rights to Hokkaido should be respected despite no known population of them in Suttsu.
A possible pathway for the Ainu people to participate in the nuclear waste site discussion, according to Morihiro Ichikawa, a Hokkaido-based lawyer focusing on nuclear waste and Ainu rights, is for the Ainu people who claim rights to Suttsu and Kamoenai to form a group and collectively decide on whether they agree to host the nuclear waste or not.
“If the Ainu group is reorganized, any development cannot take place without prior informed and free consent” under the 2007 U.N. declaration, Ichikawa said.
Pro-nuclear voices argue that more needs to be done to win public support for nuclear energy and nuclear waste, while critics argue the technology should be dropped — at least in earthquake-prone Japan.
Takatoshi Imada is a professor at the Tokyo Institute of Technology who has published research on the public opinion of the nuclear waste system. He said that, to avoid the division seen in Suttsu and Kamoenai, an organization outside of government should select around 20 sites and engage their communities in “deliberative dialogue” to win their support for waste storage.
But Kuramochi said that finding a nuclear waste storage site far away from people will be next to impossible in Japan and that nuclear energy should not be relied on as legal battles, local opposition and safety inspections will slow down its deployment.
“There’s a huge risk of spending so much money on nuclear and nothing coming out of it at the end,” he said, adding that “if you are betting on nuclear, that means they are not committing fully to a modernized grid network that can accommodate a large amount of renewables” and that “delays the whole transition of the entire electricity system.”
On the other side of the argument are proponents who see flaws in relying exclusively on renewables as nations scramble to decarbonize.
Nuclear power can provide around-the-clock clean power that solar and wind — which are reliant on mother nature — simply cannot, Buongiorno argued. Essentially, nuclear power enables a clean renewables-based electric grid, he said.
Kawashima from NUMO, agreed, saying that nuclear power “will lead to both ensuring a stable supply and decarbonization.” But the biggest challenge, he said, is to gain the understanding of the public.
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