Japan planting corals to bolster ocean claims
China Daily | Updated: 2008-04-09 07:30
Japan is mounting a $7 million coral transplanting operation in the East China Sea aimed at bolstering its side of a territorial dispute with China - and cementing Tokyo's right to exploit a wide expanse of ocean.
Over the next year, scientists will plant over 50,000 fast-growing Acropora coral fragments on Okinotorishima, two uninhabited rocky outcroppings about 1,700 km southwest of Tokyo, project officials say.
The aim is to protect the islets - now circled by concrete seawalls - from further erosion and maintain Japan's claim that they are bona fide islands that can be used to map its exclusive economic zone in the East China Sea.
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