Fujimae-higata

Coordinates: 35°04′N 136°50′E / 35.067°N 136.833°E / 35.067; 136.833

Fujimae-higata at the mouths of Shinkawa, and Nikkō River

Fujimae-higata (藤前干潟) is a tidal flat beside the Port of Nagoya in Aichi Prefecture, Japan. A campaign to stop further development has made Fujimae a symbol of the wetland conservation movement in Japan. Once celebrated in the Man'yōshū, the remaining 323 ha of wetlands have been designated a Ramsar Site.[1][2]

Wetlands

The tidal flat is at the mouths of the Shōnai, Shinkawa, and Nikkō Rivers by the Port of Nagoya.[2] Land reclamation projects started during the Edo period and continued until the 1980s.[1] A plan announced in 1981 to use the Fujimae tidal flat as a waste disposal site was finally abandoned after a long campaign in 1999.[1][3] Due to greater awareness of their function, there are now moves to return reclaimed flats to their original state.[1]

Birds

The great cormorant, spot-billed duck, and osprey are common throughout the year. The flat is also visited by a number of migratory birds, including the Eurasian curlew, bar-tailed godwit, dunlin, grey plover, northern pintail, little tern, and greater scaup.[1] Some 172 bird species have been observed in the area in recent years. Eleven thousand shorebirds and a total of thirty-one thousand waterbirds were recorded in March 2000.[4]

Man'yōshū

In the third volume of the Man'yōshū there is a poem by Takechi Kurohito: "The cry of the crane, calling to Sakurada; it sounds like the tide, draining from Ayuchi flats, hearing the crane cry". Ayuchi is the original form of Aichi, and the Fujimae tidal flat is all that remains of the earlier Ayuchi-gata.[5][6]

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Fujimae-higata.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 "Fujimae" (PDF). City of Nagoya. Retrieved 23 March 2011.
  2. 1 2 "The Annotated Ramsar List: Japan". Ramsar. Retrieved 23 March 2011.
  3. ↑ "Japanese NPO Striving to Convey Charm and Importance of Tidal Flats". Japan for Sustainability. Retrieved 23 March 2011.
  4. ↑ "Birds Observed at Fujimae-higata" (PDF). Ministry of the Environment - Chubu. Retrieved 23 March 2011.
  5. ↑ "Summary of Aichi Prefecture". Aichi Prefecture. Retrieved 23 March 2011.
  6. ↑ Kato, Sadamichi (2000). "Rediscovering an Ancient Poem to Save a Tidal Flat". International Studies in Literature and Environment. Oxford University Press. 7 (2): 189–197. doi:10.1093/isle/7.2.189.
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