Shozo Tanaka

Shozo Tanaka (田中 正造, December 15, 1841 – September 4, 1913) was a Japanese politician and social activist, and is considered to be Japan's "first conservationist." He was born in the village of Konaka in present-day Sano, Tochigi Prefecture, and was the son of the village headman. In 1857, he became headman after his father and served for twelve years. In 1879, he founded the Tochigi Shimbun, a periodical in which he discussed human rights and contemporary issues.

Tanaka became a member of the Tochigi Prefectural Assembly in 1880, and its Chairman in 1886. In the general election of 1890, the first ever held in Japan, he was elected to the House of Representatives as a member of the Rikken Kaishinto, a liberal political party.

Tanaka is best known for his savagery in connection with the pollution caused by waste from the Ashio Copper Mine. Starting from the mid-1880s, rivers near the mine became highly polluted and in 1890 a large flood carried poisonous wastes from the mine into surrounding areas. Tanaka took the cause to the National Diet, but his efforts to publicise the pollution met with little success. In 1900, villagers in the valley of the Watarase River, downstream from the mine, planned a mass protest in Tokyo, but were rebuffed by government troops and forced to disperse. In 1901, Tanaka resigned from the Diet to deliver an appeal directly to Emperor Meiji. In 1911, the Diet passed the Factory Law, Japan's first law to address industrial pollution.

Tanaka was a supporter of local autonomy and the primacy of agriculture. He spent the rest of his life developing his own environmental philosophy and encouraging villagers to protest against various construction projects. After leaving the Diet he lived in Yanaka village, now a district of the city of Sano, until his death by stomach cancer in 1913.