This dissertation provides a descriptive-analytic study of the reasons and influences underlying Japan's less than progressive policy record on wildlife preservation, domestically and globally, since 1980. This research is important for a number of reasons, but mainly it helps us to test a number of theoretical models about: policy-making in Japan; Japanese environmental diplomacy; social movements; and corporatism. I hypothesise that apart from a common sense of purpose that binds the different policy actors together, Japan's poor record on wildlife preservation is a derivative of the way environmental NGOs have been marginalised and excluded from the policy process. This hypothesis links to Japan's public safety, and food and economic security concerns whereby these concerns tend to frame and guide policy-making on wildlife and nature issues. Using case study and participant observation methodologies to gather empirical evidence, this dissertation analyses both Japanese state behaviour towards global and domestic wildlife issues, and the changing relationships between the Japanese state, foreign pressure and environmental NGOs, in order to confirm or deny the hypothesis. The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) and the Ramsar Convention are the two environmental regimes which provide the context and issues for the analyses. The research concludes that there is convincing evidence to support the hypothesis. The research also reveals the positive, although subtle, sea changes which are occurring in Japanese environmental politics in the light of the continuing changes taking place in both Japan's broader political economy and in the international community.

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