 Minamata By: Laya Bataineh, Sari Salti & Yousser Louhaichi

Table Of Content  How it started?  What is it?  The effect on the environment  Media Coverage  Pressure Groups  Bibliography

How It Started  A factory that produced chemical fertilizers dumped waste into a nearby bay causing the mercury level to rise effecting sea life.  People of the city that depended on the bay as a food source noticed illnesses from the people

What is it?  Minamata disease is a neurological syndrome caused by severe mercury poisoning affecting the nervous system.  An outbreak of Minamata disease was first reported in May 1956 in Minamata bay, Japan.  Mercury poison entered the food chain. Contaminating the water then the fish effecting the humans and land animals.

The effect on the environment  These pollutants had an environmental impact, fisheries were damaged in terms of reduced catches.  Tests revealed that the waste water contained many heavy metals sufficiently high to bring about serious environmental degradation including lead, mercury, manganese, arsenic, thallium and copper.

Media Coverage  Photographic documentation of the Minamata disease started in the early 1960s.  Photographers Such as W. Eugene Smith captured images of people with the disease to raise awareness and dramatically illustrate the consequences of the disease.

Pressure Groups  Pressure groups were formed in the 1960s and 1970s as a response to increasing environmental problems.  These groups were independent of formal political parties and focused on single, usually local, environmental issues.  Citizens’ movements were reminiscent of earlier citizen protests in the 1890s. As a result of this pressure, Japan began in the early 1970s to combat pollution on an official governmental level, with the establishment of the Environmental Agency.  Although the agency lacked strong public influence and political power, it established effective regulations to curb pollution from reaching the people.

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