Japan Golfcourses and Deforestation (JPGOLF Case)

           CASE NUMBER:         282  
           CASE MNEMONIC:       JPGOLF
           CASE NAME:           Japan Golfcourses and Deforestation


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A.  IDENTIFICATION

1.  Issue

Japan's economic success is causing many serious environmental
problems, but one stems not from its factories but from too many 
golfers.  In the late 1980s, several groups actively opposing golf 
course throughout Japan met in Kobe for their third annual 
national convention.  Attendance far exceeded expectation, as 700 
delegates squeezed into 400 seat auditorium.  Here is powerful 
testimony to the seriousness with which communities consider  the
adverse effects of golf courses.  According to a report by the 
OECD, Japan's early success in combating pollution is threatened 
by increasingly wasteful patterns of consumption.  However, most 
of Japan's future problems will result from growing affluence.  

2.   Description

Japan's total land area is about the same as the state of 
California.  Over 100 million people live in this land space. 
Before World War II, there only 23 golf courses in all of Japan and
there were only 72 in 1956.  Now, there are a total of 1,700 golf
courses in operation, with another 330 under construction and
roughly 1,000 in various stage of planning.  

Japan consists of islands covered by many mountains, and it is 
fairly easy for development of golf courses rather than developing 
agriculture and housing.  Developers clear-cut the forests and use 
bulldozers to level hilltops and fill in valleys.  As a result, 
golf course construction is identical to the destruction of 
environment.  Even though 67 percent of Japan's total land area is 
covered by forest, its forest products self-sufficiency rate has 
fallen only 30 percent.  Japan now must import much of the timber 
used in construction and the wood chips used for making pulp.   

Forests serve as a kind of natural dam, storing rainwater in the 
leaves and soil. Natural water circulating from forests feeds 
rivers and streams.  In contrast, golf courses have only one-fourth 
the water retention capacity of an equivalent forest area. Most 
rainwater simply runs off the greens and fairways.  This produces 
flooding downstream.  On the contrary, the water flow to rivers and 
creeks downstream from golf links drops to a dribble during 
periods of drought.  During golf course construction, rainfall
sends  mud pouring from the barren ground into streams.  This often 
makes the water inappropriate for agricultural or residential use.

An 18-hole golf course requires three to four tons of various 
germicides, herbicides, and pesticides every year to keep the 
green and fairways healthy, to combat weeds, and kill insects.  
Some of these chemicals are carcinogenic, while others are known 
to cause deformities and nerve damage.  There have been reports of
massive fish kills in fish hatcheries polluted by toxins in the
water from golf courses.  The nitrogen and phosphorus in the 
fertilizers will mix with rainwater and eventually flow into a 
reservoir.  The high nutrient content of water will stimulate the
growth of algae.  Consequently, this requires the water treatment
plant to use higher volumes of chlorine to cleanse the  water.
     
Golf courses use pesticides containing organic phosphorus.  After 
application, the pesticides evaporate in the air and are absorbed 
by the human body via the skin and lungs.  Caddies and 
greenkeepers often experience health problems because of the air 
pollution.  Golfers themselves breathe in the toxins as they walk 
the course before the newly sprayed pesticides have settled down. 
Winds sometimes carry the chemical agents to surrounding 
neighborhoods, and people living near golf courses worry that their 
health may also be affected.  Golf has an image as a healthy sport, 
but it may be quite different in reality.

A research group in Canada also identified the problematical 
factors of golf courses.  Soil samples were taken from greens and 
fairways, and sediment samples were taken from waterways and 
analyzed for the presence of mercury.  Greens had the highest  mean
mercury concentration, and the majority of greens exceeded 
Canadian environmental levels set for mercury in soil.  Sediment 
from a golf course lake had higher mercury levels than a lake 
located 5 km from the course.  Mussels from both lakes were 
analyzed, and those from the golf course lake near the greens had 
methylmercury and total mercury levels an order of magnitude 
greater than those from the reference lake.  Fish in both lakes 
contained methylmercury, but the level was higher in fish 
collected near the golf course greens.  The construction of golf 
courses in scenic natural sites, such as forest areas and coral 
islands, also results in the destruction of biodiversity.     

In the past, golf was a sport only of the privileged classes.  
However, golf is enjoying ever-greater popularity among average 
people today.  Golf links are always busy, and it is difficult to 
reserve playing time.  Nowadays, country club memberships cost 
more than several years' salary for the average white-collar 
worker.  Memberships in the most prestigious clubs cost anywhere 
from 100 million to 400 million yen.  Although the Supreme Court 
ruled in 1982 that county club membership certificates are not 
securities in the legal sense, they are transferrable.  This means 
they can be bought and sold.  The economic boom of the past 
several years produced a money glut in certain sectors of society. 
This trend sent rich people scouring for better investment and 
better lives.  

Golf courses can pollute the social environment as well. Golf 
course construction companies often use political connections  with
local government officials and politicians for help in getting 
residents to agree to sell their land. In exchange for their help,
the  builders arrange for politicians to get club memberships at 
bargain rates.  The memberships are almost certain to rise in 
value.  This means the politicians can sell them later at a massive
profit.  Some mayors and politicians have faced criminal charges 
for accepting bribes from golf course developers. 

Between 1960 and 1964, when Prime Minister Ikeda announced a 
national goal of doubling Japan's national income.  As a result,
the  number of golf courses in Japan swelled from 195 to 424.  The 
second golf course boom occurred around 1972.  Prime Minister 
Tanaka's domestic policies was to invest large amount of tax money
into major public works projects, such as highways and flood
prevention projects.  The number of golf courses increased to more
than 1,000 during that period. 

Prime Minister Nakasone planned a massive domestic construction 
program using private-sector capital to stimulate a depressed 
economy after the Plaza Agreement in 1985.  To provide incentive
for private-sector firms to finance these ventures, Nakasone sold
off publicly held lands in and around in Tokyo.  This was the
beginning of speculation that dramatically pushed up land prices. 
At the same time, the government sought to boost the domestic
economy with low interest rates. The effect was to put funds into
other investments, such as country club memberships.  Therefore,
the price of memberships rose in 1989 to more than four times its 
level in 1982.

Under the Nakasone administration, the Diet passed a law (it has 
known as the Resort Law) to construct a chain of resorts all 
around Japan.  This law provided national and local government 
"support" for the construction of golf links, hotels, tennis
courts, ski resorts, marinas, and so on.  This support took the
form not only of tax privileges, but also of permission to convert 
agricultural land and land in forest preservation areas to golf 
course and other resort use.  The Resort Law got rid of the 
regulations which protect agricultural land and land in forest 
preservation areas.

Golf course development is now emerging as a major environmental
and social issue in Asia, as "golf crazy Japan" looks abroad for
new courses and as other Asians start to play golf.  The Global
Anti-Golf Movement (GAG'M) was launched on World No-Golf Day (April
29, 1993) following a three-day conference on Golf Course and
Resort Development in Asia-Pacific Region in Penang, Malaysia from
April 26 to 28, 1993.  The three sponsoring organizations are
Japan-based Global Network for Anti-Golf Course Action (GNAGA), the
Thailand-based Asian Tourism Network (ANTRNNA) and the Malaysia-
based Asia-Pacific People's Environmental Network (APPEN).  In the
United States, the other golf-intensive country, the major golf
organizations have signed an agreement with the US Department of
the Interior develop environmentally-friendly courses.

3.   Related Cases

JAPGOLF case
CUBA case
ASIAGOLF case

     Keywords

     (1): Product                   = WOOD
     (2): Bio-geography             = TROPical
     (3): Environmental Problem     = DEFORestation

4.   Author:  Akiko Takeda (May, 1996)

B.  LEGAL Cluster

5.   Discourse and Status: AGRee AND INPROGRess

6.  Forum and Scope: JAPAN AND UNILATeral

7.  Decision Breadth: 1 (JAPAN)

8.  Legal Standing: LAW
 
C.  GEOGRAPHIC Cluster

9.  Geography

     a.  Geographic Domain:  Asia
     b.  Geographic Site:    East Asia [EASIA]
     c.  Geographic Impact:  Japan

10.  Sub-National Factors: NO

11.  Type of Habitat: TEMPerate

D.  TRADE Cluster

12.  Type of Measure: REGulatory STandarD

13.  Direct vs. Indirect Impact: INDirect

14.  Relation of Trade Measure to Resource Impact


     a. Directly Related to Product:  YES Golf
     b. Indirectly Related to Product:  NO
     c. Not Related to Product:  NO
     d. Related to Process:  YES Deforestation
     
15.  Trade Product Identification: Golf

16.  Economic Data

17.  Degree of Competitive Impact

18.  Industry Sector: TOURism

19.  Exporters and Importers: Japan and Many

E.   Environment Cluster

20.  Environment Problem type: DEFORestation

21.  Species Information   

22.  Impact and Effect: HIGH and Regulatory

23.  Urgency and Lifetime: Low and 100s of years

24.  Substitutes: BIODeGradable
     
F.   Other Factors

25.  Culture

Golf became a part of Japanese culture in unique way.  Today, 
people play golf to adopt into corporate culture.  Many companies 
do their business talks and play golf at the same time.  Playing 
golf has become an excellent tool to be successful business 
person.  As Japanese multinational corporations have become more 
influential in current international arena, business people from 
other countries have begun to borrow Japanese corporate culture.  
It sounds different for foreigners who know Japanese as serious 
people with a great deal of concentration when they get their work 
done.  Actually, there are many cases that Japanese do two or  more
tasks at the same time.  For instance, businessmen hold their 
important meetings in a fancy restaurant.  Even politicians make 
important decisions in a restaurant.  Probably, these occasions can 
help them analyzing the situation and the people to whom they are 
talking.     

The appreciation of Japanese yen promoted Japanese industries to 
invest overseas.  The number of Japanese tourists and business 
people reached to the peak before the corruption of the bubble 
economy.  At the same time, golf courses in Asia increased 
drastically.  The exports of tourists and business people were so 
massive that many considered as "threats" to the environment in 
numerous senses (e.g. KOALA case)

A rapid increase in leisure and tourism activities tends to 
increase the number of second homes, golf courses and ski resorts 
in environmentally sensitive areas, for instance around lakes, 
along seashores and in mountains.  

Akiko Domoto, a member of the Japanese Parliament who takes an 
active interest in environment issues, says the report which has 
been established by the OECD is "too easy on Japan".  She
criticizes  the panel for accepting that Japan compensates victims
of pollution, claiming that the system has a rather "spotty
record".  On the waste issue, Domoto believes the report does not
go far enough, nor does it emphasis some of the country's more
serious problems.  

The most important issue for Japan in the 1990s and beyond is  how
to avoid consumption patterns which are "increasingly 
resource intensive and environmentally harmful".   However, not 
very many people are aware of the fact that this tendency was 
promoted by the Resort Law from the Nakasone administration.  
After the Bubble economy collapsed, land prices in Japan fell and 
more than a few people experienced tremendous losses.  Within  this
period of time, golf memberships were sold as a result.

Probably, Domoto's assumption for sustainable environment in  Japan
would be really depend on the exchange rate between yen and 
dollar.  The exchange rate has tremendous influence for Japanese 
business activities and politics.  High yen will promote more 
investment overseas and Japanese tourism which encourage Japan 
itself to be cleaner and overseas to be dirtier.    

Besides this terrible trend, Japanese are well known as healthy 
people with tremendously long life expectancy rates.  With their 
knowledge to be healthy, there must be the solutions to the 
problem of expanding pollution in the rest of the world because of 
artificial golf courses developed by Japanese golf lovers. 

26.  Human Rights:  Yes

27.  Trans-Boundary Issues:   No

28.  Relevant Literature

Chatterjee, Pratap. "Clubbing Southeast Asia." Multinational 
Monitor, 14 (November 1993): 23-25.

"Enhancing Golf and the Environment." Parks & Recreation, 29 (May 
1994): 40-45.

"Golf in Asia." The Economist, 327 (15 May 1993): 38.

"Golf Poses Too Many Hazards." World Press Review, 40 (October 
1993): 52

Hadfield, Peter. "Good Life Could Ruin Japan's Environment." New 
Scientist, 140 (18 December 1993): 9

"Into the Bunker." The Economist, 305 (21 November 1987): 78.

"Japan." Golf Digest, 39 (July 1988): 144-152.

Matthews, S.L. "Mercury Contamination of Golf Courses Due to 
Pesticide Use." Bull Environmental Contamination Toxicology, 55 
(September 1995): 390-398.

Pearce, Fred. "How Green Is Your Golf?" New Science, 139 (25 
September 1993): 30-36.

Platt, Anne E. "Toxic Green: the Trouble with Golf." World Watch,
7 (May-June 1994): 27-33.

Williams, Martin. "Making Golf Greener." Far Eastern Economic 
Review, 157 (5 May 1994): 40-41.

Yamada, Kunihiro. "The Triple Evils of Golf Courses." Japan 
Quarterly, 37 (July 1990): 291-297.