September 3, 2025

Nature conservation groups and researchers are calling for the cancellation of a project to construct a large-scale mega-solar power plant near Kushiroshitsugen National Park in Hokkaido, famous as a refuge and habitat for Japanese cranes.

Located north of Hokkaido’s Kushiro City, the national park comprises Japan’s largest marsh, the Kushiro Marsh, and the surrounding mountainous area. The Kushiro Marsh became the first wetland area in Japan registered as a Ramsar Convention site in 1980.

Under the project in question, 6,600 solar panels will be installed at the edge of the Kushiro Marsh to generate 2,000 kWh of electricity. The construction site is located outside the wildlife sanctuary in the national park, but it is the habitat of the red-crowned crane, a special natural treasure of Japan, and the white-tailed sea eagle, a rare and protected species.

Japanese Communist Party member of the House of Councillors Iwabuchi Tomo and former JCP lawmaker Hatayam Kazuya on September 2 held a hearing with Environment Ministry officials in regard to that controversial project.

The ministry officials said that the project operator, which is an Osaka-based company, does not use the Feed-in-tariff (FIT) system and thus the ministry cannot do anything even if the Kushiro mega-solar project fails to meet legal requirements, such as conducting an environmental study. Under the FIT system, the government guarantees renewable energy producers a fixed-payment for each kilowatt-hour of electricity they produce at their facilities which meet government-set requirements.

JCP Hatayama explained that the Kushiro Marsh is home to precious flora and fauna, some of which are endangered species, and stressed the need to establish a legal framework that allows for retroactive restrictions on controversial projects, like the Kushiro mega-solar one, as new environmental facts come to light.