Environment
JWTC has 17,500 acres (71 km2) of single and double canopy jungle over very rugged terrain. Being part of the Nansei islands subtropical evergreen forests, most of the area surrounding JWTC is designated as a national forest by the Government of Japan. JWTC is home to 24 endangered species including the Okinawa Rail, Amami Woodcock, Pryers Woodpecker and the Ryukyu Robin. Also residing at JWTC are three species of pit viper poisonous snakes, the Okinawa habu, Himehabu, and the Sakishima Habu. JWTC supports ongoing and extensive efforts by the local Government of Japan's mongoose capturing project.
Following the 2006 disclosure that the United States military had made widespread use of the defoliant Agent Orange in the jungle training center during the 1960s, local citizens have called for an investigation into the current use of chemical and biological weapons within the camp. The region supplies the densely-populated south of the island with drinking water and the impact on the islanders' long term health is of grave concern.
Read more about this topic: Camp Gonsalves
Famous quotes containing the word environment:
“Modern man’s capacity for destruction is quixotic evidence of humanity’s capacity for reconstruction. The powerful technological agents we have unleashed against the environment include many of the agents we require for its reconstruction.”
—George F. Will (b. 1941)
“Maturity involves being honest and true to oneself, making decisions based on a conscious internal process, assuming responsibility for one’s decisions, having healthy relationships with others and developing one’s own true gifts. It involves thinking about one’s environment and deciding what one will and won’t accept.”
—Mary Pipher (20th century)
“People between twenty and forty are not sympathetic. The child has the capacity to do but it can’t know. It only knows when it is no longer able to do—after forty. Between twenty and forty the will of the child to do gets stronger, more dangerous, but it has not begun to learn to know yet. Since his capacity to do is forced into channels of evil through environment and pressures, man is strong before he is moral. The world’s anguish is caused by people between twenty and forty.”
—William Faulkner (1897–1962)