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Tokyo government killed 200-year-old historical Edo Keyaki-tree by breaking the promise with the local residents who wanted to save the tree.
Mami Ueda
19 February 2001
200-year-old Edo Keyaki-tree was pulled down and cut into pieces on 1 February 2001. That was said to be the biggest keyaki-tree in the urban area of Shinjuku-ward, Tokyo, but it was pulled down so easily under the name of "development" by our own government with our tax.
I would like you to know how Tokyo government ignores and destroys greenery. I decided to write this to the people around the world who are interested in saving nature, and are interested in what the local government should and should not do to its people.
1. Story: Lies Tokyo government has said to the local residents, the results of the lies, and what the government has done to the Edo Keyaki-tree and other greenery in the area.
2. Unsolved problems related to this issue.
3. Personal words toward the killed Edo Keyaki-tree.
4. Your reactions: thoughts after knowing this fact, the advice, the information about what happened or would be done in your country (or your local government), etc..
1. Story.
There is a big constructing project that has been going in Shinjuku-ward, which is one of the busiest parts in central Tokyo. The constructing business is undertaken by the Tokyo government. In this project, the government has to break down 50-year old Tokyo-run public apartment buildings, which have been covered about 1000 households. The project has been half completed and recently the other half buildings were broken down in order to supply the new multistory buildings to the residents of the oldest public apartments in the same area.
The Edo Keyaki-tree has been lived for about 200 years in the area where some of the oldest public apartments were recently broken down. The old apartments were constructed during around 1948 to 1949. It was an idea of the American occupation army at that period that suggested the Japanese government supply houses to its people having lost their houses during the World War 11.
Thus it was half century ago when the Japanese first public apartment houses were constructed. About forty 4-story buildings stand side by side in the area. It should be noted that, fifty years ago when those buildings were made, the government and the designer of the buildings saved Edo Keyaki-tree, protecting at the foot of the tree with stone walls. That is why one of the nicknames of this tree is "Keyaki the Castle."
The reconstructing business this time began in 1994 when in Japan the bubble economy was all over lingering negative effects to not only the economy itself but also people's minds. In 1994, the governor of Tokyo was Mr. Suzuki, who was notorious for building a uselessly gigantic government building. Of course, taxpayers' money was spent like "water."(This is a Japanese expression of "wasting a huge amount of money.")
Now about half of the residents of the old public apartments have already finished moving to the newly constructed several other buildings near the area, but the other half, that means about 500 households, are now waiting for the new buildings that just began constructing on where Edo Keyaki-tree stood.
On 15 November 2000, a meeting was held by Tokyo government with the local residents on the construction. At the meeting, one of the residents asked,
"What will happen to our Edo Keyaki?"
One of the officials, attending the meeting, answered,
"That tree is saved." People attending the meeting clapped when they heard this. (Actually, it was a lie, but how did they know that they were deceived?) This episode proves how the tree was recognized and beloved by local residents originally.
There was a rumor around the area that Edo Keyaki would be saved after the old buildings were destroyed.
On 16 December 2000, however, I, who was always watching Edo Keyaki with some unexplained anxiety, asked the same question which I had asked whenever I recognized the people in the constructing site. "What will happen to Edo Keyaki-tree?"
A person in charge of the constructing site this time answered, " All the trees in this area will be gone within a couple of days." I then asked, "But, you mean, including that Edo Keyaki?" He answered, "That's right. Since I was also not sure whether we can cut down that big keyaki with the other trees, I made a telephone call to Tobu-Kensetsu-Jimusho, (this means, Eastern Construction Office) of the Tokyo government to make sure they really wanted us to cut down the big keyaki-tree." He was told to cut down all the trees in the area including Edo Keyaki. The government wanted to vanish all the greenery of the area that meant sixty-three trees!
After coming back home, I wrote a letter to the current Tokyo governor, Mr. Ishihara, to stop killing that beloved historical tree immediately, saying that it was a treasure of Tokyo and the symbol of coexistence of nature with people.
The next day, I made 500 copies of handbills to ask to make a call to the government to stop killing that tree, and distributed to the people around the area. One of the bills was reached a member of Shinjuku-ward assembly, who with an assembly of the Tokyo government, made a contact to Mr. Tanaka, a chief of Eastern Construction Office at that day. In the evening, I was told from the assembly member that the residents and the section of the government would have the meeting on 21 December 2000.
While delivering the handbills to neighboring people, I noticed that there were not the single reactions from them. Some of them mentioned a very beautiful cherry lane that were also cut down and disappeared completely at the beginning of this series of reconstruction. But then, being asked to say to the government not to do the same thing again, they told me it was not their business. I was so surprised to know that they had a grudge against the government about cutting down all the beautiful cherry trees and they were not pleased to lose Edo Keyaki, either; however, they did not want to spare the pain of making one telephone call to the government.
At the meeting on 21 December 2000, the local residents, who wanted to save the tree, criticized the attitude of Tokyo government that deceived the local residents in the previous meeting by saying that the tree would be saved. If none of us had not asked about the tree a few more days, they would have been able to cut down the Edo Keyaki-tree secretly just like all the other trees. Mr.Tanaka told us, since the construction was about to begin, it was difficult to change the buildings' plan. So he would like to save Edo Keyaki by transplanting. In that case, the location of Edo Keyaki would be the center of the site since there would be an open space and there was another keyaki tree. (They seemed to save yet-to-be-killed eleven trees since the time I was told to cut down all the trees until this meeting.) The government seemed to hide the fact completely that originally they would have no intention of saving even a single tree in spite of their recent emphasis on protecting and providing greenery to its people.
As Mr. Tanaka's words sounded so realistic since he showed us exactly where the Edo Keyaki would be transplanted and would be standing side by side with the other young keyaki as the symbol of the new public apartment, I felt relieved so much. With this transplanting idea, the total of the houses would not be lessened. This seemed to be the most sensitive matter for the residents now waiting to move into the new buildings, and to some members of the assembly of Shinjuku-ward who promised the old people now living in private-run apartments that when the new public apartment would be completed, they would also have chance to apply for that apartment.
I was told, before this meeting, by one of the assembly members that this tree was like a "bombshell." There would be a possibility that my act of wanting to save that Keyaki-tree would make the "bombshell" explode. I did not quite understand; however, why asking and stating to save a historical tree that was beloved by the nearby people would be a "bombshell."
Mr. Tanaka told us that whether the tree would hold enough energy to transplant should be checked out by a tree-doctor. We agreed with this. I said to myself, "Yes! We can save him. We win."
On 6 January 2001, a tree-doctor, hired by a government, and another tree-doctor asked by us diagnosed the Edo Keyaki. But at the time, some of the residents, who were anxious to move into the new apartments, also came and criticized me that I was not the resident of the public apartment who did not understand the lives of the old people; they were desperately waiting to move to the new apartment; they did not have the bath right now; the stairs of the old buildings were so hard on those old people. I was told like I tried to save the single tree by sacrificing all those old people.
I became numb. I did not mean to sacrifice those old people. I tried to save the tree by distributing the handbills to the people because I strongly believed that the tree was beloved so much especially by old people of the area since old people have been sharing many years of their lives with that tree.
The tree-doctor told us that "In case we save a tree, the branch of the tree sometimes falls to a car, resulting to hurt the car. The government usually does not pay compensation money to the owner of the car, so that will be the local residents' association that should be responsible." (This passage is recorded on the proceedings of the day.)
He also added that " There are ways to kill the tree to contribute to us, such as making a monument by that cut-down tree."
Is saying such a thing a tree-doctor's category? Anyway, after that day, I was not sure whether I would keep the same spirit as I had in the first place.
At the next meeting, held on 16 January 2001, we, who wanted to save the tree, became a minority within local residents. The criticism aimed at me in the last meeting was so sharp that other people who were on our side did not appear the meeting this time. When I looked back on those days, my first energy to try to save the tree was almost gone somewhere. I just hoped the government to transplant the tree immediately, so the tree was saved and the people waiting for the new buildings did not have to prolong their waiting time so much.
But, at the meeting, Mr. Tanaka told us again and again, "This is a issue of choosing human beings or choosing a tree." He also said that he did not want to scale down 41 households (he said this number, 41, again and again) by saving the tree. Most of the people at the meeting criticized us so harshly. I was the first to become silent.
The other people on my side; however, did not give in so easily. While jeered so terribly by the residents attending this meeting, two of the people on my side still demanded the government that they show us the official report of the condition of the Edo keyaki written by the tree-doctor in the previous meeting. They were right. Since the only aim of the previous meeting was to let the tree checked by a tree-doctor to know the exact condition of the tree.
As a conclusion, after a lot of confusion, Mr. Tanaka told us that Edo Keyaki-tree would be cut down. But if we, the people who wanted to save the tree, find a place where the owner would agree to adopt it, then he could think about the possibility of saving it. Yet the limit was at the end of the week. ( The meeting was held on Tuesday; it meant that we had only 3 or 4 days to find the place other than the area, where the tree was standing, to transplant the tree.) At the meeting, residents, waiting for the new building, said that even if the tree would be saved, they did not want the tree to stand on anywhere that they would move in because of the shadow, because of the burden of fallen leaves, and only because if the tree would die in the future that would give them trouble.
Honestly speaking, I was not so unhappy because I thought we might be able to move this beautiful tree to one of the public places owned either by Tokyo or Shinjuku-ward.
The rest of the week passed in vain though. We were coldly refused by both Tokyo government and Shinjuku-ward with the same reason―there were no space for a single tree in any park that they had. At the end; however, we found a place just next to the area that the keyaki-tree was standing. It was very near from the keyaki and there was no building right now because the old public apartment on the site had gone. I told this site as a new home for the tree to Mr. Tanaka on Friday of the week.
On next Monday, Mr. Tanaka answered me by a fax that the place was not eligible since the tree was too heavy to carry by a crane. I thought, "Again, this man deceived us! If it is impossible to move the tree to a different place other than the current site, why did he tell us the possibility of saving it in case we found a new place for the tree?"
On 23 January 2001, a Shinto (the ancient religion of Japan) priest was invited to do a Shinto rite to exorcize evil spirits at the foot of the tree. We were finally received the report by the tree-doctor about the condition of the tree. Also, we were told that the "execution" would be held two days ahead―25 January. From that time on, I tried to find a video camera in order to record all the facts that Tokyo government had done and would do on the tree. On the other hand, the series of this incident appeared several times on some of the newspapers until this time. And as a result, people who were not the neighbors or the residents of the old public apartments began to know about Edo Keyaki. People who were interested in the environmental problems began to recognize what was going on, too. Shinjuku-ward Newspaper, one of the papers that had reported this issue, sharply criticized why Tokyo government did not plan to save the tree at the beginning of this project; the articles of this paper pointed out that the government should have had a plan of the new public apartments where people would live together with this historical tree.
One of the other newspapers, which had reported the tree, was Asahi Newspaper. This is one of the most well known newspapers in Japan. Through the articles of these newspapers and other newspapers, people knew at the first time that the keyaki was finally cut down on coming Thursday.
The "execution" day came. I held a video camera. I did not think at all that the miracle would occur. A shovel car began to scrape the soil that was mounted around the Edo Keyaki. I still remember that monotonous sound. Before long, one man appeared suddenly into the screen of the camera, running toward the tree. Well, can you think of what happened? That man stopped the shovel car's move and shouted to a person, who was on the ladder leaning against the trunk of the tree in order to hang the rope around it to pull it down.
The miracle occurred! He successfully stopped every move that led to the "execution."
There were now people at that day who knew what was going on to the tree recently. They asked passersby to notice how wrong that we were going to lose that tree. He was one of those people.
Mr. Tanaka's supervisor, Mr. Watanabe and we had a time to talk at the first time. Mr. Watanabe told us that the only reason for their decision to cut down the tree was the tree doctor's report; which stated that the tree would not be able to survive only a couple of years after the transplant. He told us that if he spent taxpayers' money to save the tree only to make it survive for a couple of years, then, it would mean to waste that precious money. We, however, successfully made a joint note that,
1) The government rethinks about transplanting to save the tree.
2) If 1)'s answer is negative, then, we should find another tree-doctor by 2 February who says that the tree will live longer than a couple of years.
In the evening of the same day, I received a call from Mr. Watanabe that they did not change their original plan― i.e., they would cut it down. On responding to this, we began to find a new tree-doctor.
Within a couple of days, one of us found a person who made a current tree-doctor system in Japan. We heard that he was concerned about this issue because headlines of the newspapers quoted the tree-doctor's diagnosis of Edo Keyaki.
On 29 January, he came to see Edo Keyaki himself and concluded that he personally thought that the tree was worth saving by transplant which could be difficult but would be possible. I did not attend this time myself. But people who were there said that Mr. Watanabe and Mr. Tanaka asked him to submit the official report on the tree. Also, they said that he was not a tree-doctor.
The headline of "Transplant Possible," appeared on Asahi Newspaper the next day, 30 January. We were excited. Now we had the words from the specialist that transplant was meaningful.
We had a sense that there would be a higher possibility of saving Edo Keyaki if people other than our neighbors knew this fact. I thought so because I have heard that the residents had carried placards and yelled a slogan of, "Listen to the people living in this public apartment," "We need young trees sending down to our offspring (this means that the old one, Edo Keyaki, is not needed)," when he paid his visit to the tree. There were plates hanging on the nearby fence of the tree. They read, "Our life be primary," "We want construction going."
On 1 February, we went to Tokyo government office all together to hand in the report written by him. Also, at around 5 o'clock, the two of us presented about 1,400 signatures collected only 2 days period to the government.
We did not expect at all that the tree was pulled down in the same evening of 1 February, when we were working so hard to try to save the tree. I suppose that the government feel the similar way―the tables were turned and if they would leave it, they could be a loser.
Although we had one more day to the time limit of our joint note that stated the government would not cut down the tree by 2 February, the tree was killed on 1 February in the darkness. It was like killing someone without being seen. In Japanese, we call such dirty act, "Yami-uchi." "Yami" means "in the darkness" in Japanese, and "uchi" means "attacking." And one of the newspapers which reported this act of the government with the headline of this expression.
2. Unsolved problems related to this incident.
1) Why on earth didn't the government think of any other possibility of coexisting that tree with the new buildings when they first made the plan?
2) Mr. Tanaka and others told the residents to "save the tree" while they were secretly planning to kill it without noticing by the residents. They were public servants. Can such a lie and deception be overlooked?
3) Mr. Tanaka told the residents again and again that this was the issue of choosing humans or choosing a tree. Also, he told them that if he wanted to save the tree, he had to lessen 41 households as a sacrifice. The fact is; however, this was not the issue of alternative choice at all, because we wanted to save the tree by transplant after the meeting of 21 December, 2000. Saving the tree by transplant has a base of no changing to the original planning. There were fliers on each entrance of the old public apartments stating the same thing; "we decided to let part of the tree because if we saved it, 41 households would not be built." How could such a lie be excused; especially, it was repeatedly said by a government employee?
4) I recall right now that Mr. Tanaka did not mean to transplant the tree at all from the beginning to the end. He did not seriously mean to rethink to save the plant when I found the place next to the area that the tree was standing.
5) The government denied the second tree report only because he was not a tree doctor. He is not a tree doctor because he is a teacher of tree doctors. He makes examinations of tree doctors. He is the one who noticed the need to have trees' specialists in Japan. Mr. Tanaka and Mr. Watanabe asked him to submit the tree report when he visited the tree on 29 January. If they denied him not to be eligible why did they ask him to hand in the report?
6) Mr. Watanabe and I made a joint note on 25 January. And on the note, it clearly stated that the government did not cut down the tree until 2 February. Is it O.K. to break the promise made with residents so easily? We had one more day to come. On knowing they turned down the tree specialist's report around 5 o'clock on 1 February, we desperately started seeking for one more tree-doctor who supported the contents of his report.
7) This was the biggest tree in the urban area of Shinjuku-ward. Also, keyaki-tree is Shinjuku-ward's symbol tree. This means that keyaki-tree should not be cut down so easily in our town. I visited Shinjuku-ward to tell me anything about the tree but they just told me they did not have any information about the tree. However, I heard that the tree was the biggest one in the urban area of Shinjuku from one of Tokyo government officers. He told me that he attained the information from Shinjuku-ward. Why didn't they tell me the information on the tree while they told it to Tokyo government? There is a section called "Green Park Department" where the greenery of the ward should be taken care of. I asked a very simple question of why Edo Keyaki was not a "protected tree"? Green Park Department of Shinjuku-ward answered because it stood in a public area. Since the "protected tree" should be eligible in private places, they could not do anything. That's their answer. Is Shinjuku-ward not responsible at all for losing the tree? Why aren't they responsible when their residents lost 83 % of greenery in a single area including the historical ward's symbol tree?
3. Personal words toward Edo Keyaki.
I have been living in a district where my friend described "scary." Because this district, named Takadanobaba, scarcely has any greenery. In the summer time, I often feel to be suffocated probably because there are not enough greenery and a lot of exhaust gas. Two years ago, I walked across the neighboring district, that is named Hyakunin-cho (this means 100 people's town) where I encountered Edo Keyaki tree. Since that time, almost every evening I walked by the tree. I was so moved by the awing beauty of the tree. The tree was so immense in the middle of our concrete desert. It was 17meater's high; looked like taking care of all the other younger trees under its gigantic branches. I can not express how much I loved and treasured the tree in words; how much I received comfort and consolation from the tree. The tree had been there for two hundred years. This means the tree had been there long since none of us were born. It must have experienced a lot of ups and downs. It had been survived all through the years by itself.
In our ward, by the way, 85 m2 of greenery is lost every day. There were 63 trees including the keyaki on the constructing site, and this time, 52 out of 63―i.e. 83 % of the trees of that site, was cut down and were gone.
Tokyo government excludes twenty tree wards (all the wards of Tokyo) from their protective greenery areas. I do not understand why twenty-tree ward, that has already not enough trees, should be excluded by its greenery plan and cut down the historical, one of the biggest trees and other trees so easily? It should be remembered that the tree was saved fifty years ago when the previous public apartments were made right after the World War II.
One officer told me that Hyakunin-cho area had green percentage that was over the aimed percentage. He told me that the residents in that area had too much greenery. It sounded like the percentage was absolute and complete. If the percentage of greenery is higher than the minimum, the government tries so hard to lessen the amount of it just like they did this time.
There was a rumor that Edo Keyaki would be saved, but I had anxiety of losing that precious tree. My intuition was right. They killed the tree.
I am sorry for the keyaki because I do not think that I had done my very best to save him. I was once not sure what I was trying to do was right. When told by the residents that I was the outsider, I answered them back that Mt. Fuji belonged not only the residents of Shizuoka prefecture where the mountain stood, but also belonged to all the people who loved that mountain. I tried to say that the same thing went for the Edo Keyaki, but my words did not seem to be understood by them.
I am sorry for the keyaki. He gave us shade and consolation. He amused us by his gigantic figure. I watched him with awe. I respect the longevity that he attained. The tree was all silent, but I had a lot of communication with him. He had been standing there and was killed by us after all those years of giving us immeasurable gifts. None of us gave him water. He found it all by himself. Not many tried to save him while many of the residents who must have been owed by him shouted to cut him down. Edo Keyaki had been looking down on us all through these hectic days without complaining. Without whining. And now he is cut into small pieces and piled under the blue tarpaulin not like a gift but like a waste from the mother earth.
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