During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, pollution from the Ashio Copper Mine in Tochigi Prefecture, Japan, wrought damage over a vast area \u2013 villages north of the mines were abandoned as the area was made barren from smoke damage, whilst downstream over 40,000 hectares of land were inundated with contaminated flood waters destroying the livelihoods of thousands of farmers.
\nAshio\u2019s pollution marked Japan\u2019s first major industrial pollution incident and became an issue around which supporters of social reform began to rally in the late 1890s and early 1900s. Amongst those campaigning against pollution were prominent Christian thinkers including Kinoshita Naoe (1869-1937), Uchimura Kanz\u014d (1861-1930), and others.
\nThese thinkers sought to challenge the causes of the pollution and the government\u2019s lax response to it, whilst supporting the plights of commoners affected by the mine poisons. This paper will explore the origins of the Ashio Copper Mine Incident alongside the development of the thought of early Japanese Christian thinkers in regards to pollution and industrialization in Meiji period Japan. Particular focus will be given to the work of Kinoshita Naoe and Uchimura Kanz\u014d.
\nIt will seek to illustrate that Japanese Christian thinkers were primarily concerned with the human effects of pollution, and that they sought to place the commoners and their plights at the centre of their theologisation of the incident.
\nThis anthropocentric approach, which positions social reform as the key to overcome environmental problems, will potentially offer novel insights and new points of departure to those engaged more environment-focused ecotheologies of the modern day.<\/p>\n