is an island of the Inland Sea in Japan. With a total altitude of 82 m,Falling Rain.com - Iwaishima it lies at the south-eastern edge of the Yamaguchi Prefecture (山口県, Yamaguchi-ken) at coordinates .
The name is derived from the ancient ritual of passing travellersHerbert Plutschow; Chaos and Cosmos: Ritual in Early and Medieval Japanese Literature (Brill, 1990 ) and is in fact home to a ceremonial fishing dance specific to the islandHana Hou as noted in the crew journey log of the Hokule‘aPolynesian Voyaging Society website on their journey from Micronesia to Japan.
In 1982, Chugoku Electric Power Company proposed building a nuclear power plant near Iwaishima, but many residents opposed the idea, and the island’s fishing cooperative voted overwhelmingly against the plans. In January 1983, almost 400 islanders staged a protest march, which was the first of more than 1,000 protests the islanders carried out. Since the Fukushima nuclear disaster in March 2011 there has been wider opposition to construction plans for the plant.
See also
Ashes to Honey Anti-nuclear movement in Japan
References
External links
Nuclear power plants and biocultural renaissance: A case study of Iwaishima Island in the Seto Inland Sea of Japan, Journal of Marine and Island Cultures Volume 1, Issue 2, December 2012, Pages 126–130 https://web.archive.org/web/20111002112229/http://www.pref.yamaguchi.lg.jp/cms/a123003/island/iwaishima.html (in Japanese)