Restore 100 Hectares of the Miyagi Coastal Forest

The change of the season means that the winter is not suitable to plant a new batch of black pine seeds. But this does not stop the seedling nursery workers, who are the survivors of the great tsunami, from learning more about restoring the lost 400-year-old forest.

Since the start of the 10-year-project in 2011, 245,000 black pine seedlings have been steadily growing at the OISCA nursery in Natori City. One batch of the seedlings is growing in new technology-advanced reliable black pots inside the greenhouses. The survivors are taking this time of the year to carefully observe and maintain the hundreds of thousands of seedlings and participate in forestry training programs in Fukushima.

The survivors are learning new and efficient forestry techniques to ensure a high rate of survival for when the seedlings are transplanted on the coastal mounds in spring 2014. For example, the potted seedlings are arranged in order for the length of the roots to extend out of the pots and into the ground. Once they are ready to be transplanted to the ground before the coastal mounds, the workers must cut the roots resulting in a tiring extra step. But after two training sessions in Fukushima, the workers learned that placing a film sheet in between the pots and the ground will skip the cutting step and may still result in a high survival rate. A sample of potted seedlings will be growing on top of a film sheet. The workers will observe the results of the both samples in the early spring.

With the support from the GlobalGiving community, these tsunami survivors are given the opportunity to learn more forestry skills to pass on to their future generations. 

Toyopet in Sendai has been a longtime supporter of OISCA activities in Japan for the past 30 years. This summer, Toyopet has helped supply a Toyota Vanguard 4WD for the general transportation of the team of disaster-affected locals of the Coastal Forest Restoration Project.

Before this vehicle was purchased, the team used an old, unreliable two-seater pick-up truck that could not reach distances outside of the local neighborhood nor survive in the sandy field site. With their new Toyota Vanguard, the team will be able to quickly go to the station, store and supporters for their daily needs and reports. But most importantly, they will be able to go to the field planting site more frequently because the Toyota Vanguard’s 4WD is more suitable for the sandy trails and more resistant to the strong winds.

In 2014, the nursery seedlings will be transplanted at the mound field sites. With this new, fast and strong means of transportation, the Coastal Forest Restoration Project will save time and energy on simply getting from place A to place B, and will be able to spend that extra time and energy on restoring their coast, one seedling at a time.

The Toyota Vanguard will arrive in mid-October. It is silver metallic, can accommodate 5 people, and has a large trunk storage area.