Hirofumi Yamashita, an active campaigner against the destruction of wetlands near Isahaya Bay on the Ariake Sea, died Friday of heart failure at his home in Isahaya, Nagasaki Prefecture, members of his group said. He was 66.
Family members found Yamashita collapsed at his residence at around 6:30 a.m. and took him to a hospital, but he was pronounced dead on arrival, according to the Isahaya Bay Emergency Rescue Task Force.
Yamashita had just returned from a trip to the United States, where he attended a reunion of recipients of the Goldman Environmental Prize.
Yamashita, who fought to save and protect wetlands, had earned the recognition of international organizations and in 1998 won the Goldman prize, an annual award aimed at honoring grassroots environmentalists.
Also in 1998, he was featured as one of the Heroes for the Planet in Time for Kids, a magazine affiliated with the U.S. newsmagazine Time.
Yamashita launched a campaign in 1972 to oppose the government's plan to turn Isahaya Bay, one of the country's largest and most biologically rich tidal flatlands, into dry land for agricultural purposes.
After lobbying by Yamashita, fishermen and other local residents, the government decided in 1982 to halt the development plan. The victory was short-lived, however, as the government in April 1997 went ahead with the plan and closed sluice gates in the bay to drain the wetlands.
Yamashita studied ichthyology and worked at the Ariake fisheries experiment station in Saga Prefecture. He was the spokesman for the Japan Wetlands Action Network, a network of grassroots and national conservation organizations founded in May 1991.
Yamashita also forged ties with environmental groups in South Korea and with Naoto Kan, the chief policymaker of the Democratic Party of Japan.