The power of EM revives Seto Inland Sea 　It is a miraculous movement. On 23rd and 24th of June, I was able to witness the miraculous results and confirm my belief in this wonderful movement when I attended a reporting tour of "Eco-pure", an environmental magazine with Nihon-TV (NTV). Both Eco-pure magazine and Nihon-TV will offer you a special report on this tour in the near future, but I would like to tell you my impression briefly before them. 　The key to the success in water purification in Akitsu-cho, Hiroshima Prefecture is the unity of the government and private sector. In Akitsu-cho, EM activated liquid is used in 60% of all households in their daily life. The town is quite advanced in that the "Regulations for environmental beautification and purification" requires people to make efforts to prevent water pollution by using EM. Residents and local government, in cooperation with each other, produce EM activated liquid and pour it into the river and watercourses. As a result, polluted sediment has been reduced and people are happily surprised to see that medaka and crayfish are back. 　They have also started to utilize EM for oyster farming in a new attempt to revive this industry. Because of the sea pollution and having farmed oysters in the same place for too many years, polluted sediment prevents oysters from healthy growth. Therefore, they have started installing EM balls under the oyster beds. Professor Nakano has started to gather data for research to estimate the effectiveness of this measure. We are expecting the results of his investigation around next year. 　In Utsumi-cho, I was impressed with the organic laver farming of Mr. Isao Kaneda. Mr. Kaneda started to produce EM organic laver four years ago, which was the first attempt in Japan. You might think that laver is a product grown naturally in the sea, but actually, a lot of chemicals, such as acids and chlorine, are used for laver farming just like in agriculture. However, if people use EM, they don't need to use any chemicals. Mr. Kaneda's work has proven this. Furthermore, when seawater goes back to the ocean with a lot of EM in it, it suppresses the foul smell of the polluted sediment. If all the laver farmers used EM for production, our dream to purify the whole ocean will come true. This is the conclusion of the results of our tour. 　The main factors of ocean pollution are industrial and household effluents. There are tremendous micro-organisms living in the ocean and the soil. As we can see in a tideland, these micro-organisms have the power to purify and get rid of pollution. As long as the ecological system is working, wastes which man produces will be decomposed and purified. However, when the amount of wastes exceeds this natural balance, a problem arises. There is only one way to settle this problem. It is to strengthen the power of nature to revive by itself. EM stands for Effective Micro-organisms. It is a group of micro-organisms developed by Teruo Higa of Ryukyu University. By using these combinations of EM, contamination turns into revival. Human beings can help such workings of nature. It promotes the symbiosis of nature andhuman beings, and is never too difficult to carry out. 　EM technology has already been utilized in environmental projects such as organic farming, water purification, and recycling of industrial wastes. It is also used for environmental education and in many other situations. EM is used in more than 500 local authorities in our country, and it is used in 107 foreign countries as well. In Thailand, North Korea, Pakistan, and Myanmar, they have even started national projects using EM. 　One of the main purposes of our tour was to cover the scene where local government and residents are cooperating with each other. The other main purpose was to gather material for my environmental report. I am supposed to make a speech at the "Seto Inland Sea Environmental Forum", which will be held on Omi-shima in the Seto Inland Sea on September 6-7. Local authorities, Universities, NPOs, fisherman's unions, and companies located around the Seto Inland Sea are expected to participate in this forum. The main theme of this forum is the environmental purifying movement utilizing EM. 　For further information about our observations, please refer to my HP. You will find my report and pictures there. 　I have confirmed again that EM is the key to saving nature in the 21st Century and the movement which will restore the health of human society. Marutei Tsurunen