When will we ever learn ...

Katoku beach and its village are wrestling with how to cope with increasingly damaging storms.Credit...Noriko Hayashi for The New York Times

When will we ever learn in terms of preserving nature instead of trying to rule over it, 

in this case, a pristine beach in Japan.

KATOKU, Japan — Standing on its mountain-fringed beach, there is no hint that the Japanese village of Katoku even exists. Its handful of houses hide behind a dune covered with morning glories and pandanus trees, the chitter of cicadas interrupted only by the cadence of waves and the call of an azure-winged jay.

In July, the beach became part of a new UNESCO World Heritage Site, a preserve of verdant peaks and mangrove forests in far southwestern Japan that is home to almost a dozen endangered species.

Two months later, the placid air was split by a new sound: the rumble of trucks and excavators preparing to strip away a large section of Katoku’s dune and bury inside of it a two-story-tall concrete wall meant to curb erosion.

The sea wall project demonstrates how not even the most precious ecological treasures can survive Japan’s construction obsession, which has long been its answer to the threat of natural disaster — and a vital source of economic stimulus and political capital, especially in rural areas.

“It became necessary to destroy the town to save it.”  - Peter Arnett/Vietnam

The seawall in front of Aminoko, a village near Katoku.Credit...Noriko Hayashi for The New York Times