The Evolution of Japanese Images of the Environment

Abstract This paper explores the evolution of Japanese images of the natural environment from the earliest religious and cultural traditions to the present. Although Japanese tradition viewed human beings as part of and dependent upon the natural order, it played no part whatever in restraining or moderating Japan's drive toward industrialization in the last century. For the contemporary period the paper explores changes in government views, as revealed in official development plans, as well as views of environmental activists, and concludes that something approaching a new national consensus of environmentalism has emerged in the 1970's. However, this new consensual view is based on bitter recent experience, not on Japanese traditions.