(JP)Humans pay the price for destroying nature

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http://www.asahi.com/english/tenjin/K2001112000345.html

 

Humans pay the price for destroying nature

Asahi Newspaper, Nov 20, 2001

 

The Japanese words mizube and mizugiwa are both

translated as ``waterfront'' or ``at the water's

edge.'' But in Japanese, the two words differ subtly

in meaning, according to Hiroya Kawanabe, director of

the Shiga Prefectural Lake Biwa Museum. Kawanabe noted

during the recent 9th World Lake Convention in Shiga

that from around the time people started saying

mizugiwa rather than mizube, all sorts of problems

began to plague lakes and rivers.

 

The be in such other words as yamabe (the neighborhood

of a mountain), nobe (the fields) and hamabe (the

seashore) implies an expanse of space whose limits are

not sharply defined. Traditionally, mizube was used to

denote places where bodies of water-such as

lakes-would dry up and disappear, only to reappear

later in an eternal dry-wet cycle. The usage was quite

appropriate.

 

The giwa (or kiwa), on the other hand, implies a

sharply drawn borderline. The Japanese kiwadatsu means

to stand out or to be conspicuous. In the case of Lake

Biwa, its transition from mizube to mizugiwa took

place when the shoreline was reclaimed and concrete

was poured into the embankment to turn this into a

rigidly contoured body of water.

 

The disappearance of mizube practically obliterated

the dense reed growth and hurt the lake's

self-cleansing mechanism.

 

The fish population dwindled, deprived of their

spawning grounds previously provided by the reedy

marshes and sands. The rivers flowing into Lake Biwa

also became uninhabitable to fish when the riverbeds

and banks became concrete. The lake ceased to be

people-friendly, too, and people lost their affection

for what was no longer their familiar mizube.

 

I recall a poem by Homei Iwano.

 

It goes: ``Having trudged along the beach (hamabe) in

the dark, I scoop up a handful of sand at the water's

edge (migiwa).''

 

Both the hamabe and mizugiwa are present here, for

people to roam around and regard in contemplation.

 

Humans are destroying what has taken nature eons to

set-natural boundaries between water and land. I have

no idea how long it will take for humans to undo what

they have done. Perhaps some of the things were done

to protect themselves.

 

But the price being paid for what they have done is

certainly not small. (The Asahi Shimbun, Nov. 19)

 

 

 

 

 

 

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