It is a starry, moonless night in July, on a tiny island in the Japanese Inland Sea. On a dock, five children and six parents are huddled around an old man with a bucket of sea water. The group is quiet and intent. The old man takes a stick, stirs in the bucket, and suddenly the water glows with a swirling cobalt blue. Child and parent alike gasps in wonder.

Though this might seem like a scene from a Japanese anime film, it is in fact a very real and very natural phenomenon. One caused by a tiny creature called the sea firefly.

Sea fireflies, measuring 2-3 millimeters in length, have populated the shores of Japan's Inland Sea since time immemorial. They live in the sand of clean beaches, and at one time, they were so numerous that a nighttime walk along the shore would result in a glowing trail of footprints.

Today, however, as with so many things, the sea firefly has become so rare that most people have never heard of it. Pollution is seen as a major reason for this, from the chemicals that are dumped into our rivers and oceans, to the immeasurable tons of trash that wash up on the shore every year.

For decades, Japan's beaches have been a soiled paradise. While the country has the 6th longest shoreline in the world, its beaches and rocky shores have almost seemed like magnets for the river- and wave-borne garbage, not only of the country itself, but of its neighbors as well.

This is one of the prime concerns of Umimori--an organization that was set up in 2003 in order to protect Japan's sea and coasts. Umimori (which literally means protect the sea, or sea-guardians), boasts over 61,000 volunteers around Japan, who are united by their love for the sea. They organize beach-cleaning events, attend ship christenings, and come together for events that raise awareness of the importance of the sea.

The gathering on the island was just such an event. Eighteen elementary school children from around the country came, with their parents, to learn not only about the beauty and importance of the sea, but also the need to protect her. The day had begun with a trip to the opposite side of the island. There, the children were given a chance to play in the ocean, on a beach that, with its golden sand and lack of people, might have looked the same one hundred years ago. Might have, that is, if it were not for the volume of glass, plastic and Styrofoam demarking the high-tide line. The day before the children came to play, the Umimori staff had gone down to the beach, cleaning up a fifty-meter stretch, and checking carefully for glass and other sharp objects.

So, while the kids were free to splash in the waves or to have a watermelon-breaking contest, they gradually became aware of the piles of refuse on either side of them. Then, when it was time to go home, each child was required to spend time picking up trash. The children were impressed that, though each carried away a double armload of garbage, the amount littering the beach seemed to have not changed. Through this simple act, the kids became acutely aware of the connection between responsibility and fun.

That night, at a different, clean beach, the children took the sea fireflies from the bucket and returned them to the sea. As the miniature blue lights danced and swirled out into the surf, the sixty-year old men running the program explained how it was only in pure environments that such beautiful things could live. That it was up to each of us to keep our world that way. The children, at a very malleable age, seem to completely absorb the message.

Umimori is an impressive organization, working at a grassroots level to address a pervasive problem--the protection of Japan's seacoasts. That day in the Inland Sea, the organization took a new step--toward the future protection of Japan's coasts. The kids that took part in the expedition will remember it for the fun and the beauty of the dancing blue sea fireflies. And when they do, they will undoubtedly remember to take care of the nation's beaches. It is with pride that The Nippon Foundation supports Umimori.