Court Signals Bend of U.S. Marine Base for Okinawa Dugong

Ninth Circuit Judge Paul Watford told government attorneys at the hearing that the Center for Biological Diversity and other U.S. and Japanese environmental groups have standing to seek a ruling that the Department of Defense failed to adequately consider whether the base would harm the Dugong, vacate the Pentagon’s findings that it would not, and order it to issue new ones.

The Okinawa dugong, a genetically isolated population inhabiting the waters surrounding Okinawa, are critically endangered. In 1997, the Mammalogical Society of Japan estimated the Okinawa dugong population had been reduced to fewer than 50, and the Japanese government recently estimated that there are at least three Okinawa dugongs left, according to the plaintiffs’ brief to the Ninth Circuit.

Source: HELEN CHRISTOPHI, Courthouse News Service

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