There are many ways to fight for the protection the environment. Some people choose active approaches such as Green Peace-type sit-ins and protests, while others prefer to appeal to the general public. Attorney Takaaki Kagohashi has chosen law as his weapon.
Kagohashi is a member of the Japan Environmental Lawyers Federation, a nationwide NGO composed of nearly 350 legal experts, all of whom work to protect the environment through legal means.
"When we talk about environmental protection activities, there are a number of aspects," said Kagohashi, who has been in the field for the past 13 years.
"Scientists provide scientific data through research, academic experts talk about it in educational means. We, as lawyers, can use our legal expertise.
"We can help local residents to bring the issue to the court and provide information that they might find necessary. One of the roles of the law is to control power and we can stand on the frontlines of nature conservation activities by using the law."
Kagohashi said the environmental protection issue tiptoed into the range of social vision in Japan sometime around 1990 - at the peak of the bubble economy - when excessive land development projects for the construction of golf courses got out of hand. The media pounced on news of companies pouring money into land in an effort to increase land prices.
But when the bubble economy fizzled out, he said the construction of industrial waste processing facilities and public works came into light.
The government - both at the national and local levels - planned a number of public works projects hoping to revamp the stagnant economy. Kagohashi said that was a mistake. "I have always felt a strong connection with nature," Kagohashi said. "I used to play in the forest when I was a child. I'd run around catching insects and felt like I was one with the natural surroundings.
"But that is a feeling I believe that everyone has. Living together with nature is the true meaning of being `rich,' " he said.
With the attraction to natural surroundings and the "heroism" to achieve justice in mind, Kagohashi said he decided to become a lawyer just before he finished his undergraduate degree at Kyoto University in the Kansai region.
"First I handled a number of medical cases, which I still do, but during the course of events that have taken place since, I have been handling cases concerning environmental protection for the past 10 years,"Kagohashi said.
"One of the most prominent cases I'm handling is one involving a golf course development project in Amami Island (in Kagoshima), filed in 1995. The case has gained national attention because we named the rabbits that inhabit the area as the plaintiffs in the case, and made an appeal for`the rights of nature,' " Kagohashi said.
Other cases include the construction of the Tokuyama Dam, the country's largest dam, which is now under construction in Gifu Prefecture, and a dam near Isahaya Bay in Kyushu.
"However, it is difficult in Japan to run a legal office by handling environmental cases alone because it just does not pay. You have to deal with normal cases such as traffic accidents and matters of inheritance.
Actually, 80 to 90 percent of the cases I handle involve those types of issues."
Kagohashi said that he hopes he can run his office on donations from supporters of environmental protection, just like a number of environmental lawyers do in the United States.
"I have that kind of pride, as an environmental lawyer, we are the leaders of the generation. Although we have a limited membership, we are starting to convince the society, the national government and the business sector that the environment is something important. We're trying change their minds in favor of the environment."
What Kagohashi is most interested in recently is the protection of the jugong, a sea creature that lives in the waters near Nago City, Okinawa.
"Jugongs are very peaceful mammals and have been surviving tens of thousands of years," he said. "It's miraculous that such animals are living near Japan, but the government is trying to relocate the U.S. military base there."
Kagohashi and his colleagues are planning to use a piece of the U.S. law, called the Endangered Species Act to protect the animals and are planning to organize volunteers to work in alliance with lawyers in the United States.