S

Minamata

By: Laya Bataineh, Sari Salti & Yousser Louhaichi

Table Of Content

How it started?

What is it?

The effect on the environment

Media Coverage

Pressure Groups

Bibliography

How It Started

A factory that produced chemical fertilizers dumped waste into a nearby bay causing the mercury level to rise effecting sea life.

People of the city that depended on the bay as a food source noticed illnesses from the people

What is it?

Minamata disease is a neurological syndrome caused by severe mercury poisoning affecting the nervous system.

An outbreak of Minamata disease was first reported in May 1956 in Minamata bay, Japan.

Mercury poison entered the food chain. Contaminating the water then the fish effecting the humans and land animals.

The effect on the environment

These pollutants had an environmental impact, fisheries were damaged in terms of reduced catches.

Tests revealed that the waste water contained many heavy metals sufficiently high to bring about serious environmental degradation including lead, mercury, manganese, arsenic, thallium and copper.

Media Coverage

Photographic documentation of the Minamata disease started in the early 1960s.

Photographers Such as W. Eugene Smith captured images of people with the disease to raise awareness and dramatically illustrate the consequences of the disease.

Pressure Groups

Pressure groups were formed in the 1960s and 1970s as a response to increasing environmental problems.

These groups were independent of formal political parties and focused on single, usually local, environmental issues.

Citizens’ movements were reminiscent of earlier citizen protests in the 1890s. As a result of this pressure, Japan began in the early 1970s to combat pollution on an official governmental level, with the establishment of the Environmental Agency.

Although the agency lacked strong public influence and political power, it established effective regulations to curb pollution from reaching the people.

Bibliography

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/07/14/the_odd_body_minimata_disaster/

http://www.nimd.go.jp/archives/english/tenji/a_corner/a01.html

http://www.nimd.go.jp/syakai/webversion/SSSGMDreport.html

http://homepages.gac.edu/~lmahoney/environmental/disease.html

http://www.country-data.com/cgi-bin/query/r-7105.html

http://www.country-data.com/cgi-bin/query/r-7105.html