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falseandrealultravival · 2 years

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Ashio Mine Pollution Incident and Shouzou Tanaka : The origin of pollution in Japan

Shouzou Tanaka(ｗｉｋｉ)

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In the Meiji era, it refers to a series of turmoil that occurred due to the operation of Ashio Copper Mine. Ashio Copper Mine is a mine on the Tochigi side of the border between Gunma and Tochigi prefectures, and was discovered in the early Edo period, but full-scale operation was supported by the Meiji government with Furukawa Ichibei's national policy of breeding industry and wealthy soldiers. It was after the beginning of the Meiji era, when modern facilities were built. ( Ichibei Furukawa:市兵衛古河)

Pollution had two sides. One is the annihilation of forests accelerated by smoke damage, air pollution and private felling caused by sulfurous acid gas emitted in the process of producing copper from raw ore. Therefore, slag (residue) flows out to the middle and downstream every time a large number of floods occur, and harmful copper, zinc, cadmium, etc. make the fields and mountains barren. This is another side.

This damage affected not only Tochigi, Gunma, and Saitama, but also Tokyo, Ibaraki, and Chiba's five prefectures, including the Watarase River basin. When this problem became clear in 1890, Shouzou Tanaka (正造　田中: elected by Tochigi Prefecture), who became a member of Parliament in the same year, took it up in the Diet. In 1900, farmers who were trying to petition the government of Tokyo ("Extrude Tokyo") collided with the government (The Kawamata incident).

Shouzou Tanaka, who gave up on collecting the mine poisoning problem in the Diet, resigned as a member of the Diet in 1901. In the same year, he appealed directly to Emperor Meiji. In 1905, farmers and Shouzou Tanaka objected to the plan to abandon Yanaka Village in Tochigi Prefecture to make it a vast retarding basin with the intention of concealing the problem of mine poisoning, but Yanaka villagers are in neighboring towns and villages, far away in Hokkaido. In 1918, Yanaka Village was destroyed and settled the problem.

And the Ashio copper mine problem comes to see a tentative solution. Shouzou Tanaka took the form of having a hard time before the enormous power of the state, but the words of Shouzou such as the diary, letters, and articles recorded in the 20 volumes of "Complete Works of Shouzou Tanaka" (Iwanami Shoten) are still in the country. It is used for reading both inside and outside of Japan.

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This is the description of "Hatena Keyword" about "Ashio Copper Mine" that I made. The following is also a description of "Shouzou Tanaka" from "Hatena Keyword".

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A statesman and environmental protection activist in the Meiji era. Born December 15, 1841 in Konakamura, Tochigi Prefecture.

Build a generation of wealth in the market and step into the world of politics. He devoted himself to the Freedom and People's Rights Movement from time to time and was elected in the 1890 House of Representatives election to become a representative. When the Ashio copper mine incident occurred in the same year, the Diet asked for a solution, but he resigned as a representative and devoted his life to solving the Ashio copper mine incident as an activist in the field. It is famous that he directly appealed to Emperor Meiji in 1901 when he resigned. This was the eve of the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905).

Died September 4, 1913. At the time of his death, his fortune was gone, and there were only old Bible, accessories, and three "pebbles" in the cloth.

After the war, pollution problems occurred all over the country, and he came to be regarded as the forerunner of the environmental protection movement.

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#Ashio Mine Pollution Incident #Shouzou Tanaka #Meiji era #Ashio Copper Mine #Ichibei Furukawa #the Russo-Japanese War #forerunner

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