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Ainu land rights in crosshairs as Hokkaido communities debate nuclear waste

Nuclear energy and waste are “a poison,” Kano says, that don’t fit into the philosophy of Ainu people, the Indigenous group which inhabited Hokkaido before it was annexed in 1869 by imperial Japan.

Japan Times, By Chermaine Lee, Jul 6, 2025

Plucking the resonant strings of a tonkori — a broad, sword-shaped instrument that’s been played by the Indigenous Ainu people for generations — Oki Kano, a Japanese musician of Ainu descent transformed a club in Kyoto into a vibrant tapestry of sound, mixing together rock, Ainu folk and dub music as part of a tour earlier this spring.

Refusing to be labeled an activist, Kano has woven his rebellious spirit and a nod to Indigenous rights into his music, which moved anti-nuclear activists following the 2011 Fukushima disaster. Perhaps most notably, he made a speech at a United Nations meeting later that year that clued some people into the issue of using Indigenous land for nuclear plants and waste storage.

Nuclear energy and waste are “a poison,” Kano says, that don’t fit into the philosophy of Ainu people, the Indigenous group which inhabited Hokkaido before it was annexed in 1869 by imperial Japan.

These days, Indigenous land rights have added another layer to the division of opinions in Suttsu and Kamoenai, two wind-blown fishing communities in the prefecture, over whether to host a permanent underground repository for Japan’s nuclear waste. Residents of the two municipalities, with fewer than 4,000 people combined, have expressed conflicting views on the prospect after their respective mayors volunteered for a feasibility study on the prospect in a bid to secure all-important subsidies.

‘An Ainu problem’

Kano’s U.N. speech regarding Hokkaido and Japan’s nuclear energy inspired American scholar ann-elise lewallen, a professor at the University of Victoria in British Colombia, specializing in modern Japan studies and Indigenous and environment rights, to start a yearslong research project into how a potential nuclear waste dumping ground in ancestral Ainu land might violate their rights.

Although there are no current Ainu communities in these two villages, the professor told The Japan Times during her research trip in Hokkaido that any energy decisions in the prefecture are “an Ainu problem” because of land rights issues

Vocal opponents like Kano aside, Ainu people have not raised the issue of nuclear waste en masse, with many more focused on salmon fishing rights. Still, lewallen says their consent is essential under United Nations principles to protect Indigenous rights. Without it, Japan is carrying out what she calls “energy colonialism.”

In 2007, Japan was among the 143 countries that voted in favor of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People. The declaration states that governments shall “take effective measures” to “ensure that no storage or disposal of hazardous materials shall take place in the lands or territories of Indigenous people without their free, prior and informed consent.”

But the declaration is nonbinding and Japanese law does not currently recognize the Ainu peoples’ rights to Hokkaido’s land, an issue that is currently a focal point in a high-profile court case over salmon fishing rights.

It was only in March when the absence of Ainu consent on the nuclear waste study was mentioned for the first time during a meeting held by the Nuclear Waste Management Organization of Japan (NUMO) with Suttsu residents about the site, anti-nuclear activist and Suttsu resident Kazuyuki Tutiya said………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/environment/2025/07/06/energy/hokkaido-ainu-nuclear-waste-storage/

July 13, 2026 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | indigenous issues, Japan