September 7, 2023
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Cyrian Pitteloud, « The 1897 Commission of Inquiry on the Ashio Mining Pollution: from Laissez-Faire to the State Management of an Environmental Crisis », HALSHS : archive ouverte en Sciences de l’Homme et de la Société, ID : 10.4000/cjs.2079
The Ashio copper mine case was one of the most important ecological and social crisis of modern Japan. Due to the scale of the environmental issues and of the protest movement, in 1896, the central authorities were forced to get involved, after a decade of laissez-faire. On March 24, 1897, an Ashio pollution investigation Commission was established by the Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce, in charge of this matter. If the measures taken by the Government represented a step towards the supervision of mining activities, the initial purpose was to protect this industry. The analysis of the minutes of the Commission and of the governmental decisions tells us a great deal about how the authorities back then handled an environmental crisis, as well as what was at stake in the exploitation of a natural resource.