| Riot police at rally | Music | 00:00 |
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| MCLEOD: It's a massive security operation. | 00:09 |
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| Music | 00:13 |
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| MCLEOD: More than a thousand police and riot squad members have been deployed. | 00:29 |
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| For this ragtag bunch of trade unionists, farmers and students, that might seem like overkill. But those familiar with the history know that the battle for Tokyo's International Airport, Narita, has been fierce. | 00:35 |
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| Man at rally: Let's Fight! | 00:49 |
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| Music | 00:56 |
| Protestors at rally | MCLEOD: Today's rally is just one of many staged over the years by the farmers and their supporters. As always the target is the Narita Airport Authority. Today's rally is by no means the largest or the loudest, it's simply the latest in this long running saga. | 01:05 |
| Narita airport activity | Music | 01:23 |
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| MCLEOD: Today Narita is an airport running at full capacity. Thirty million passengers arrive and depart every year. | 01:29 |
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| Music | 01:37 |
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| MCLEOD: Sixty percent of international flights in and out of Japan come through here, but only one runway can handle the largest jets. | 01:42 |
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| Music | 01:50 |
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| MCLEOD: It’s a tale of taxiways to nowhere. What had been planned as a massive air hub with three interlinked runways, is less than half that size. | 01:58 |
| Guest house surrounded by airport | All because of eight landowners who’ve refused to budge. Bizarrely, the airport has been built around the disputed sites -- like this disused hostel. | 02:09 |
| McLeod and Aoyama by airport periphery | McLeod: That’s a guest house? Aoyama: Yes that’s a pension. If you look here… Unfortunately we have not been able to buy the land, so the plane passes along this side. | 02:19 |
| 1960s Tokyo Archive | MCLEOD: 1960s Tokyo was a place of development at all costs. And the emerging megalopolis of 20 million needed a new airport. | 02:36 |
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| A patch of farmland 60 kilometres outside the city centre seemed the logical choice. | 02:49 |
| Airport protest Archive | Music | 02:56 |
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| MCLEOD: But it didn’t work out quite like that, as farmers resisted all attempts to force them out, and buy them out. | 03:00 |
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| As the years dragged by, the protests grew in size and intensity. With the farmers joined by students, housewives, anarchists. The violent clashes sometimes turned deadly. | 03:11 |
| Protestors break into control tower Archive | On the day the airport was due to be opened – ten years late, in 1978 – the protestors had their most public victory. They broke into the new airport's control tower – destroying air traffic control equipment – further delaying the airport's opening. | 03:29 |
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| Music | 03:46 |
| Noriko | NORIKO: It was that kind of time. | 03:49 |
| Noriko black and white photos | MCLEOD: Noriko Ishii was a university student drawn into the protests. | 03:53 |
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| NORIKO: I felt it was unreasonable for the farmers to be kicked off their land – because they worked very hard growing rice and vegetables. | 04:03 |
| Noriko on farm | MCLEOD: Falling in with the protestors – Noriko Ishii fell into romance. In the midst of the chaos – she found a husband – from a family being forced out by the airport. | 04:15 |
| Plane overhead/Noriko on farm | More than thirty years on she has no plans to leave. | 04:29 |
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| NORIKO: That's despite the family's farm lying at the end of what would be Narita's third runway. | 04:48 |
| Noriko with family | NORIKO: We don't feel tense. Now isn't the emergency time. We have a day to day life. | 04:55 |
| Noriko | Well (laugh) we don't have battles now. We're living a normal life here. That's how I feel. | 05:11 |
| Kurono in board room with colleagues | MCLEOD: But not if airport bureaucrats like Masahiko Kurono have their way. With Narita's eventual privatisation on the cards, he’s determined to push through the original 1960s master plan. | 05:20 |
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| KURONO: I think we have to continue our efforts in order to persuade those landowners and my feeling is that the resistance on the part of those landowners is gradually weakening. | 05:38 |
| Construction site | MCLEOD: The fact is, it's an extremely noisy place these days. And the extension of Narita's too-short second runway means it's only going to get worse. | 05:52 |
| Hagiwara working on farm | Susumu Hagiwara's family have lived with the Narita master plan for four decades. | 06:07 |
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| He's maintained a prominent role within the protest movement. But with the extended runway due to open next year, living next door to Narita is about to become harder. | 06:17 |
| Hagiwara | HAGIWARA: They are pushing ahead with construction, which has resulted in pressure to kick us out. | 06:28 |
| Hagiwara working on farm | MCLEOD: Susumu Hagiwara argues that Japan’s boom is over and there’s no need to expand the airport. | 06:41 |
| Planes in b/g behind farm/ Hagiwara | HAGIWARA: We were born and brought up here. Therefore we are protecting our land, following the will of our parents who were pioneers here. | 06:48 |
| Plane over farms | MCLEOD: It’s a war of attrition the planners believe they can win. | 07:02 |
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| KURONO: At the time of construction of this airport there were 1,150 landowners. And all together there are now eight. | 07:07 |
| Kurono | But they are also aware that the world is changing. So I believe that we will eventually be able to persuade them to hand over their land to us. | 07:17 |
| Plane spotters | Music | 07:28 |
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| MCLEOD: Despite the years of conflict most travellers would be oblivious to it – so the next time you're passing through Tokyo, spare a thought for the farmers of Narita. | 07:33 |
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| Music | 07:45 |
| Credits: | Reporter: Shane McLeod Camera: Jun Matsuzono Research: Yayoi Eguchi Editor: Garth Thomas Producer: Ian Altschwager | 07:53 |