Abstract: On July 10, 2020, seventy-one Okinawan and Japanese civil society organizations and groups (and one Philippine organization) sent a letter of request and a civil society report to the U.S. Marine Mammal Commission (MMC), the U.S. federal agency in charge of overseeing the U.S. Marine Mammal Protection Act. The letter asks the MMC to “review and comment” on the U.S. Department of Defense’s (DoD) efforts to preserve the Okinawa dugong, an endangered marine mammal that is Okinawa’s cultural icon, now threatened with extinction due to the construction of a U.S. military base at Henoko-Oura Bay, Okinawa.