William To understand Ariake Sea is to understand Kumamoto and to know that it is the canary in the coalmine. It is not so much of a sea as a bay - a narrow body of water surrounded by four prefectures: Kumamoto, Saga, Fukuoka, and Nagasaki. And it is dying. The canary here is the catch of asari clams. In the below graph, dark blue is Kumamoto, and as can be seen, the catch has dwindled to basically zero. Yet the shellfish remains a required element of miso-soup centered Kumamoto breakfasts. To feed this need, Japan has turned to imports, mostly from China and Korea. However, asari are a bit like champagne: produced in Spain, for example, the same item must be called “cava.” Kumamoto governor Kabashima has requested that the Prefectural Fisheries Cooperative Association suspend shipment of asari produced in Kumamoto for two months, saying that foreign-produced clams are being distributed under the guise of being produced in Kumamoto. Better in my opinion would be to restore Ariake Sea by reclaiming the water-purifying wetlands which have been sacrificed for unused farmland and unneeded seawalls. https://news.yahoo.co.jp/articles/6c27cb3fdf49312e331acf62f8ab22ceb449b532