laws because of earlier demands from representatives at the National Governors Committee
(Zenkoku Chijikai) beginning in July 1968 which insisted on equity with the benefits received by
local communities from the construction of central government sponsored large scale projects
like Narita Airport (Miyano 2000: 171). Furthermore, local government bodies encountered a
number of difficulties in assisting their citizens displaced by dams, and the assembled governors
argued that the financial burdens were too much for villages, towns, and cities to handle on their
own (Takase 1971: 51). The strong local resistance in the 1960s in the Yanba Dam, Shimouke
and Matsubara cases also pushed administrators to provide more funds to communities targeted
for submersion and relocation (Shinoda and Takigawa 1985: 52). In the interim, between 1967
and 1973, ad hoc committees determined compensation and subsidies to dam host communities.
Along with these incentive tools, central government ministries hold powerful
disincentive tools, or “sticks” as opposed to “carrots.” Among them, the Ministry of
Construction can reduce or cut central government funds for construction and public works
projects which often provide much needed jobs in rural towns and can threaten to exclude
individuals from future participation in irrigation and water resource schemes. This method of
discouraging localities from resisting government planned public works projects is known as
administrative pressure, or gyōsei appaku in Japanese. For example the ministry of Agriculture,
Forestry, and fisheries warned farmers who refused to cooperate with the Kawabe River
irrigation project that they would be excluded from the implementation stage and hence would
not receive water for their crops (Kawabegawa Risui Soshō Genkoku dan 2000: 15 – 16)
In another well publicized case, the Ministry of Construction responded to the emphatic
refusals of Kitō-village mayor Fujita Megumi to allow the Hosogōchi dam plan to continue by
cutting off funds to his town. The dam would have submerged 32 houses along with the main
roads for the area, effectively ending the village’s existence. Fujita used his platform as mayor to
19
Convention