On Thursday 24th August, 2023, Japan's TEPCO electric company began discharging radioactive waste water into the Pacific. The waste water comes from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, which went into meltdown following the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami in 2011. There is 1.3 million tonnes of water is currently held in tanks at the power plant, which TEPCO plans to release over the next 30-40 years. 

In response, protests have erupted across the Pacific Asia region and the world. I attended one protest outside the Japanese embassy in Te Whanganui a Tara / Wellington in Aotearoa, and includes speeches from the protest, alongside a statement read by Pacific Islands Forum Secretary-General Henry Punu, from a webinar earlier this year, and an interview with Friends of the Earth Japan's Aymui Fukakusa from 2021.

Image used under Creative Commons licence (CC BY)