Deep Blue Group Construction Solutions
How green is Tohoku’s ‘Green Connections’ project?
On its surface, the plan seems like an environmentalist’s dream come true: Take wreckage from the March 11, 2011, Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami in the Tohoku region of Honshu and pile it along the washed-out coastline; cover the crumbled concrete and broken wood with soil; then top it all with trees.
Communities in Tohoku have been creating “disaster-prevention” forests similar to these (minus the raised banks) since at least the 17th century, but few withstood 2011′s huge tsunami. By restoring them, coastal settlements get natural protection from wind and sand — while waste becomes the literal foundation of a safe and “green” recovery.”
That’s the basic outline of Midori no Kizuna (Green Connections), a Forestry Agency project getting under way on Pacific beaches from Aomori Prefecture in the north to Chiba Prefecture bordering Tokyo.
Meanwhile, a similar private-sector plan to plant a “great forest wall” in the region is also rolling into action. Both have all-star support: former Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda plugged Green Connections on national television in April 2012; while the Great Forest Wall Project is being led by Morihiro Hosokawa, another former prime minister, and world-renowned ecologist Akira Miyawaki. The latter has worked in countries including Malaysia and Brazil planting a diverse mix of local tree species to quickly recreate and restore indigenous forests. The initiative has already raked in ¥270 million of donations.
So why is Yoshihiko Hirabuki, a plant ecologist in Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture — Tohoku’s biggest city — spending his summer scuttling between the local Forestry Agency office and construction sites along the city’s shoreline, trying to slow the restoration of coastal forests?
As he tells it, it’s because the undertaking is an environmental wolf in sheep’s clothing.
“There’s something wrong with a forest-creation project that destroys the living things — flowers, insects, birds and grasses — that managed to survive the massive tsunami,” he says. “In this era of respect for the importance of ecosystem services and biodiversity, I can’t help thinking Japan is making an irreversible mistake.”
He’s not alone in that opinion. The Nature Conservation Society of Japan (NACS-J) — one of the country’s most respected environmental organizations — and the academic Society of Vegetation Science have both submitted petitions to the government expressing concern that tree-planting projects could damage the unique coastal ecosystems that are already recovering.
The central problem is this: Native plant communities could end up buried under a strip of rubble covered with dirt trucked in from nearby mountains and planted with “man-made” forests — unless environmental-impact assessments are conducted, conservation zones are set aside, and great care is taken during construction.
Those are some of the protective measures Hirabuki and a group of about 30 other conservationists have been pushing for the Forestry Agency to take in Sendai.
Earlier this year, the agency’s Sendai branch office agreed to set up a committee to consider the project’s environmental impacts and come up with a strategy for preserving biodiversity. But Hirabuki says it amounts to too little, too late.
Deep Blue Group Construction Solutions
By normanh4wk
Deep Blue Group Construction Solutions
- 905