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OpEdNews Op Eds    H2'ed 9/9/16

Criticism of Worldwide Conservation Group for not addressing the Destruction of Nature by Wars and Military Operations

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Okinawan Environmental Activists at IUCN

Environmental activists from Okinawa had a booth at the IUCN at which they told about the attempt of the US military and the national Japanese government to construct a runway complex into Oura Bay, a pristine marine area that that is the home of the protected species of marine mammal, the dugong.

The Deputy Governor of Okinawa and the Mayor of Nago city, Okinawa, both of whom have been key figures in the grassroots campaign to stop the construction of the runways and the lawsuits filed by the provincial government of Okinawa against the federal Japanese government, gave presentations about the citizens' struggle against the construction of the runways.

No Environmental Activists from Jeju Island, South Korea, site of previous IUCN meeting

However, there was no mention of the environmental effects on the marine environment from the construction of a huge new naval base on Jeju Island, South Korea, the site of the previous IUCN conference four years ago. At that conference, IUCN, no doubt at the request of the South Korean government, refused to allow citizen activists to have a booth inside the convention or make presentations like the Okinawans did this year. As a result, the Jeju Island campaigners were forced to stay outside the conference site.

Four years later in the 2016 WCC conference in Hawaii, the Government of Japan and the Province of Jeju Island sponsored a large multi-media pavilion about Jeju island which did not mention the construction of the new naval base and the destruction of the cultural heritage of the site nor the displacement of women divers who had dived at the location for generations.


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Local Groups from Honolulu have rally and sign-holding against Militarization of Asia and the Pacific

On September 3, local groups in Honolulu came to the Hawaii Convention Center with signs to remind the IUCN of the US militarization of Asia and the Pacific. Issues of the environmental impact from the huge 108,863 acre Pohakuloa bombing range on the Big Island of Hawaii, the largest US military installation in the Pacific, the Aegis missile test center on the island of Kauai and the four large US Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine bases on the island of Oahu and the extensive number of US military bases in Japan, Okinawa, South Korea, Guam and new US military installations in the Philippines and Australia were featured on the signs and posters of the local environmentalists.


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Ann Wright is a 29-year US Army/Army Reserves veteran, a retired United States Army colonel and retired U.S. State Department official, known for her outspoken opposition to the Iraq War. She received the State Department Award for Heroism in 1997, after helping to evacuate several thousand (more...)
 
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