Issue:
May 2025 | Letter From Hokkaido
Anger is brewing over the environmental impact of vast renewable energy projects
A decade ago, mega solar farms were all the rage in Japan, as the country shifted away from nuclear power following the March 2011 earthquake, tsunami and reactor meltdowns. Renewable energy advocates saw an opportunity - finally, it seemed, Japan was ready to seriously pursue solar energy in the way other parts of the world had already embraced.
Thanks to a 2012 feed-in tariff, investors rushed in with plans to set up solar panels in vast tracts of unused or underutilized farmland in rural areas suffering from depopulation. “Energy consultants” offered confident predictions of the future, envisioning rural prefectures providing clean energy to the major urban centers via large solar farms.
In Hokkaido, mega solar projects created a gold rush mentality, attracting developers who took advantage of lax local zoning regulations, elderly landowners who knew their farming days were numbered, and politicians desperate to give local voters hope for the future in the midst of grim demographic and financial realities. Today, a drive around the prefecture reveals that many plots of land that once grew potatoes, wheat, corn, and onions, have been taken over by acres and acres of solar panels.
But now, in Kushiro, the Hokkaido mega solar movement is facing stiff opposition to a project near the internationally protected wetlands, home to many rare and endangered species. The protests are coming not just from environmental activists, but also from most Kushiro city council members, including those belonging to the local chapters of the Liberal Democratic Party. The fate of the project has national implications. Other prefectures with growing doubts about environmental issues related to mega solar projects are closely monitoring the struggle between the Osaka-based developer and local residents.
The Kushiro wetlands cover nearly 26,000 hectares. In 1980, they became the first wetlands in Japan to receive protection under the Ramsar Convention, and then further environmental assistance after they became a national park in 1987. The wetlands habitat includes a wide variety of waterfowl, including the Steller’s sea eagle and the Japanese sparrowhawk. It is the world’s largest breeding ground for the red-crowned crane, and home to the northern giant salamander.
But protecting the wetlands has always been seen in Kushiro city as something the national government, and to a lesser extent, the prefectural government, was in charge of. It took concern across a broad political spectrum about the damage that could be inflicted by a proposed mega solar project to finally spur the city into pushing for a permit system to allow solar power generation facilities to be established within city limits. That gave Kushiro the right to reject any proposal it judged to be environmentally damaging to the surrounding wetlands.
Such an ordinance, however, will not be debated by city hall until September. That has the Osaka-based Japan Ecology Co.Ltd. concerned. The company has plans to build a mega solar project in Kushiro city, on a 27.3-hectare undeveloped area near the wetlands. Last December, the company told Kushiro residents that, during its site investigations, it did not find any Steller’s eagle nests, and that there were no cranes or giant salamanders in the area. But in February, the company said that, while no nests had been found in the project area, a nest was discovered about five or six meters from the site’s boundary.
In late March, there were reports that Steller’s eagle nests, including old ones, had been found within the project site. That led to Kushiro city finally issuing a notice to Japan Ecology, prohibiting entry to the site under the Cultural Properties Protection Law. As a result, Japan Ecology has notified the city it will suspend construction around the nest area, an area covering approximately 2.5 hectares.
As of April, the project itself was officially still going forward, even as calls to cancel it were growing. In mid-April, 20 of the 24 Kushiro city council members, including six of the seven local LDP members, supported an online petition by environmental groups and local activists to halt construction of the mega solar project. Kushiro's mayor, Hidenori Tsuruma, made sympathetic noises about the potential damage to the natural environment, but said there was nothing he could do to stop the project.
The struggle over mega solar in Kushiro is expected to continue, as more environmental surveys of the site and surrounding wetlands areas are expected in the coming months. When, or if, Kushiro’s new ordinance requiring solar power companies to obtain construction permits for solar panels is passed, it might provide the impetus for other Hokkaido municipalities to establish similar ordinances. Especially in parts of the prefecture adjacent to nationally protected environmental areas. Those include the Shiretoko peninsula and lesser-known areas where concern is growing over the environmental damage caused by mega solar projects.
For renewable energy advocates, Hokkaido has long meant an abundance of wind power that can wean Japan off fossil fuels and nuclear power. But in their rush to exploit Hokkaido’s solar energy potential, the renewable energy industry and cash-strapped local governments have not paid enough attention to environmental factors. The debate in Kushiro shows that, in Hokkaido and elsewhere, those concerns can no longer be brushed aside as easily as in the past.
Eric Johnston is the Senior National Correspondent for the Japan Times. Views expressed within are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Japan Times.
