Japan’s Science Missteps Risk Major Diplomatic Incident In Mauritius Over Wakashio Oil Spill

In the latest set of missteps by the two Japanese Government Disaster Relief teams of 13 specialists on the ground in Mauritius, there was outrage on Friday that now risks escalating into a major diplomatic incident. In their latest set of reports on Friday, the Deputy Team Leader of the Japanese mission, Noriaki Sakaguchi, reported that the “mangroves did not have oil damage.” 

This reporting that there was ‘no oil in Mauritian mangroves’ was prominently reported in Japan’s English-language press of the Japanese Government-backed NHK-Japan as well as The Mainichi Newspaper.

These reports went against accounts from Japan’s own team just 11 days ago [google translate guide on how to translate Japanese language sites into English] that showed how extensive the damage had been seen among the corals and mangroves in Mauritius, UN reports that described over 30 km of Mauritian coastline being heavily damaged, satellite imagery showing over 27 square kilometers of coral had been covered in oil, and thousands of images and videos have been shared on social media daily showing how much oil has been absorbed by the extensive mangrove roots that are critical fish spawning grounds for the large coral lagoon of the entire East Coast of Mauritius.

These slow, contradictory and inaccurate reports have fueled the strong backlash that is growing against the Japanese Government’s involvement in Mauritius 42 days since the Japanese vessel first crashed against the pristine coral reefs. Japan’s Government involvement is now being viewed more along the lines of trying to protect several major Japanese companies, operator of the Wakashio, $12 billion Mitsui OSK Lines (MOL) and shipowner Nagashiki Shipping, as well as Japan’s main shipping insurer the Japan P&I club, than help the people or nature of Maurtitius.

There has been strong criticism in Mauritius at what is being viewed as pseudo-science by the Japanese teams sent to Mauritius so far, and a lack of local transparency and reporting by this team.

All this has spurred calls from The Pope, Sir Richard Branson and the maritime industry press themselves, to call for more ethical industry practices.

In response, Mauritius ratifies new trade deal with China

In a sign that even the Mauritian Government is embarrassed and under pressure with Japan’s slow and weak scientific efforts, an important trade deal with Japan’s main rival, China was announced at a Cabinet meeting on Friday 4 September.  The trade deal was ratified at the Cabinet meeting and extends preferred trading status for 8,547 Mauritian products into China, which is a market of growing importance to Mauritius as China looks to take on the US as the largest economy in the world and Mauritius looks to relaunch its economy.

Such a trade deal comes amid rising tensions in Asia between Japan and China and is being interpreted as a warning to the current weak efforts by the Japanese Government in response to the Wakashio oil spill.

Japan’s exclusionary approach of what has happened in Mauritius is now placing it at odds against major countries that had been offering scientific support to Mauritius and that Japan had once counted as allies, such as the USA, Australia, Canada, UK, France. These countries had all been offering the support of scientists with deep subject matter expertise in each of Mauritius’ complex and rich variety of species and ecosystems. However, this expertise and international collaboration appears to have been rebutted in preference for only Japanese scientists despite this region being a global biodiversity hotspot with several internationally protected sites.

As Japan goes through a Prime Ministerial leadership contest following the resignation of Japanese Prime Minister on 28 August citing health reasons, 22 days after the oil spill from the Wakashio began on 6 August, and as 50 whales and dolphins washed up dead on Mauritian shores starting on 26 August, rectifying the events in Mauritius will surely be an important agenda item for the new Japanese Prime Minister. 

At a time when Japan had been reaching out to many African and small island states as part of Prime Minister’s Shinzo Abe’s strategy to build strong diplomatic and economic ties around the world, much of this strategy is being unwound with the Japanese Government’s haphazard response in Mauritius.

Many African and small island nations have been keeping a close eye on the slow and obstructionist approach taken by the Japanese Government, where it was only revealed this week that no biodiversity scientist with deep knowledge of oil spills in these important biological ecosystems in Mauritius, had even been on the ground in the 42 days since the Wakashio had grounded on 25 July.

So while the Japanese Government fiddles with its response, China has significantly expanded investments in ocean science and maritime capabilities and is threatening Japan’s historic dominance as the leading ocean science experts in Asia.

Japan may soon find itself no longer in the unique technical leadership position of ocean expertise or in diplomatic favor, that Africa and other island nations have the choice of. That would be a very expensive diplomatic mistake for Japan at a time when it needs as much international support as it can get.

Japan pseudo-science on ecological risk

In addition to the false reporting about mangrove damage, it has also caused anger in Mauritius that more information is being released to the Japanese population than to the Mauritian population, where no local public briefing by the Japanese Disaster Relief Team have taken place so far.

Just 11 days ago, there had been detailed discussion in the Japanese media about the extent of the damage, in particular:

• Mangroves: Japan scientists warning that the mangroves could die within 6 months unless the proper attention is given. In an interview on Japanese TV, Shigeyuki Baba, chairman of the International Mangrove Ecosystem Association and an emeritus professor at the University of the Ryukyus, said, “Mangrove roots have the role of absorbing nutrients and breathing, but when oil adheres, toxic components permeate. The cell membrane will break and die.” In addition, Mr. Baba said that considering the damage situation of the past spill accident, “If the mangrove remains oily, it will die after about half a year.“
• Fish: The rise in arsenic in Mauritian fish had been increasing 500% – 700% above normal levels.
• Whale and dolphin deaths: Uncertainty about the cause of almost 50 whale and dolphin deaths (in addition to countless more smaller species like crabs, eels, fish) around the oil spill site and along the Mauritian coastline have been particularly troubling.

Visibility around corals: Even 1.5km away from the crash site, visibility has declined by over 75%. In an interview on Japanese TV, Hironya Yamano described that visibility was down from 20m to less than 3m, which is not normal.

He went to say, “This is because the stern part of the cargo ship left on the site and the chain of fences that prevent oil diffusion move under the influence of waves and scrape the coral, and the limestone that forms the skeleton of the coral is broken and drifts in the sea. It is believed that some of the corals that seemed to be dead could be due to snowfall on the coral, suffocation, and loss of photosynthesis.”

Speaking on Japanese TV, Yamano went on to say, “In the past, I have never heard of a stranded ship continuing to scrape off corals and turbidity occurring in such a wide range, and it will be necessary to monitor the effect of broken calcareous on corals over the long term.” The calcareous effects refer to the limestone sediment of corals that have broken off and is creating low chalky visibility in the tropical waters of the coral lagoon.

The Japanese press was also reporting that the JICA team reported that Corals in Blue Bay Marine park were ‘healthy,’ but the type of test done to make such a statement was not clear. This comes as SAR satellite imagery had revealed oil drifting into the Blue Bay Marine Park forcing the oil protection booms to be redeployed on 12 August.

While Hironya Yamano has 4075 academic citations for coral reef system research, none are on the impact of an oil spill on coral reef systems and this is not even one of his research focus areas. There are some very specific phenomenon of the impact of oil on coral reefs systems that have been highlighted in Forbes and by other scientists, and these questions have still not been addressed, such as was raised by former US Department of Interior official and oil spill specialist, Rick Dawson in an interview with Forbes when describing the impact of boat strikes during oil cleanup operations. Such experts with experience of oil spills on coral reef systems do not appear to have been engaged in Mauritius, in another troubling sign that the world’s best science is being held back. 

The reef system in Mauritius that the vessel collided with is the largest and oldest in Mauritius and is estimated at being over 100,000 years old. The damage caused could be irreversible and could lead to the collapse of the coral lagoon as the Easterly currents start to pour through the damaged corals, creating destructive eddy currents within the lagoon that will start to significantly impact fishing, coastal protection and beach zones along this coast. This will be complicated by the toxic chemicals in the lagoon that is increasing the porosity of the corals and hampering coral growth (polyps).

There are clearly understood scientific protocols to handle and address all of these issues. None appeared to be deployed in any of the footage being released by the Government of Japan, including clear biological sampling with strong chain of custody protocols.

Qualifications of Japanese teams questioned

Mr Noriaki Sakaguchi from the Japanese Development Agency JICA, who had been prominently issuing the statement that there was no damage to Mauritian mangroves, does not appear to have any expertise in coral or mangrove systems. 

A review of Mr Sakaguchi’s academic publications show he only had 9 publications, 7 of them is on the breeding habits of Japanese cats (none of which are endemic to Mauritius).  His last internationally recognized publication was 18 years ago in 2002.

It is only this week that the Japanese Government announced another team of six ‘experts’ will be flying to Mauritius. The qualifications of the team in handling major oil spills of the fuel type in Mauritius has not been released.

In recent years, Japan has been trying to bolster its capabilities in ocean leadership through Japan’s main ocean science institutes of Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology, the University of Tokyo, Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology, Shizuoka University. We have not yet heard independent accounts from these universities of their assessment of the quality of science being performed by the JICA teams had this been an oil spill on Japan’s shores.

At a time when Mauritians are asking for international scientific collaboration to restore this pristine habitat, scientific jingoism is what it is getting.

Missed Chemical Signatures

Usually after a major oil spill, the extent is treated like a crime science. Forensic chemists and biologists take carefully controlled samples to laboratories to conduct precise tests to understand the exact impact of such oil in the waters of Mauritius.

Given that almost 50 whales have died, this is now of paramount importance.

There are other concerns about the effects of chemicals, especially cancer causing Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (or PAHs) in the water that many in Mauritius rely on for tourism and domestic use along the East Coast.

To date (42 days since the grounding first occurred), this analysis has not been revealed. Why is this being hidden when this information is critical to rehabilitation efforts?

Medical issues being ignored by Japan’s Disaster Relief Teams

There have also now been hundreds of medical and health complaints by villagers and children around the spill site complaining about nausea, dizziness, blurred vision and the persistent smell of petrol fumes in the air. This follows a series of reports in leading medical journal, The Lancet about some of the concerns that are not being addressed.

In the article in the respected international medical journal The Lancet by Dr Sima Barmania, Dr Barmania provided several examples of the range of medical issues being seen on the ground. She conducted interviews with Saleem Peerally and his team at Diagnos Clinique in Mauritius who offered free consultations to those involved in the clean-up as well as others who were affected. He reported seeing patients with a range of acute symptoms thought to be associated with exposure to oil. “People complained of difficulty breathing and burning eyes from the fumes…while others had neurological effects like dizziness and nausea.”

Carina Gounden was involved in the clean-up and described her symptoms to The Lancet, “I was in a state of confusion, unable to focus, finding it difficult to breath. I was not the only one.” She said that one local fisherman she worked with needed to be rushed to hospital with respiratory distress.

As reported in The Lancet, The Mauritian Minister of Health, Kailesh Jagutpal, argued that the symptoms shown by locals were general and “not directly related to the heavy oil spilled”. Jagutpal also said that studies done in southeast of the island, near the spill, showed that “no toxic product was detected”. The Mauritian Minister of Health has since been strongly criticized in Mauritius in his response to the oil spill.

Harry Phoolchund, a Mauritian physician, said “There has been lots of criticism [of the government] about the delay in response to the disaster as a whole.”

There has been no comment from the World Health Organization whether they are planning to send a team to assess the potential impact of the oil spill, in the absence of systematic human health surveys by the Japanese Disaster Relief Team on the ground.

In short, the Japanese Government’s interventions in Mauritius has not been its finest hour. It is not too late to address the situation, but will need to show a lot more international collaboration with scientists from around the world who have the necessary expertise internationally.

‘No more fishy business’

Time is of the essence as the shipping incident transforms into a ecological and human health crisis.

The current Mauritian Government have been widely criticized for it’s clumsy response too, including the attempt at a quick backdoor $34 million deal with Japan that has been widely criticized. But this is the first major oil spill the island nation has experienced.

Lessons from major industrial incidents around the world show that diplomacy lasts longer than politics, and as the effects of the oil spill is felt for years and decades to come in Mauritius, the actions of the Government of Japan will be remembered by successive Governments.

As anger mounts with ongoing street protests in Mauritius every two weeks, the signals from the people of Mauritius have been pretty clear to the Government of Japan: ‘No more fishy business.’

The eyes of the world are now on the Japanese Government to see how seriously they are taking these demands.