When I first started making this video, the working title was how Japan got its forces back.

Because when you think about Japan, what do you think of probably the mega city that is Tokyo boss of buildings and concrete, Very few trees.

However, Japan ranks third among the world's advanced regions after Finland and Sweden in the expense of its force land as a percentage of national territory.

For a highly industrialized country with a large population, to have more than 2/3 of its territory covered by forest is absolutely incredible.

It is an incredible story, and it's why I started making this video.

But the more I dug into it, the less clear cut it became pun intended to start telling this story.

I want to take you back about 400 years or so.

This is the time of Sam Uday and DiMeo.

A not so peaceful time.

Okay, so that was a little too far back.

I actually wanted to get to the part where Tokugawa Unified Japan in 16 03 and the Edo period commenced.

During this period of peace, Japan was essentially closed off to foreign trade, requiring them to be self sufficient.

If they lost the forests, they had nowhere else to turn.

What helped preserve Japan's diversity of trees was a unique Japanese landscape called Seattle Yama, My Boy, Sir David, even Collab with Japan's national broadcaster and H K to make a documentary about it.

Rice has been a part of Japan for so long that it has shaped the land.

Yes, we could all sit here for hours listening to that incredible voice.

But here's the part that sticks out.

This is a land that has been touched by people, yet the people tread lightly upon it.

They're fake, they're natural, but they're not.

These are artificially created environments, although, as the UK is national, Treasure tells it, it works Settle.

Yama is an environment created by human beings certainty.

But it's also one that is in harmony with the natural world that surrounds it.

People purposely kept up the biodiversity because they benefited from it, and for hundreds of years, Japan's forced covered 2/3 of its land.

This is pretty amazing, considering that in the development of other countries during the same time periods, they lost a lot of their force coverage.

But then in 18 53 U.

S.

Commodore Matthew Perry came a knocking and Japan was forced literally at gunpoint to open up the country.

This is when Japan started thinking it's dominate or be dominated.

Japan integrated foreign technology, industrialized Godel imperialistic.

And it all worked for a while until it didn't.

At this point in time, the forced weren't doing so well anymore.

They were cut to help fuel the war.

They were bombed and destroyed when the war came to the home front.

And then during the rebuilding, they were clear thought to create farmland, to feed the people and for building materials to house them.

However, the government still realized that forced were unimportant natural resource and went on a planting spree.

Trees that would help the economy recover were chosen Suki Japan's national tree.

The Japanese cedar was selected because it grew fast and grew straight.

Hinoki Japanese cypress, a high quality would use for temples and shrines, was also picked.

That 2/3 force coverage was retained, and despite some dips along the way, Japan has been able to keep it that way until this very day.

A beautiful success story and this is where I thought the video would end, but then I did some research, some more research and then some more research.

And now my working title is why Japan isn't chopping down enough of its trees.

How did I come to this way of thinking?

Well, I can tell you it isn't mine.

It's an idea shared by both environmentalists as well as a Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, forestry and Fisheries.

So to tell this story, I have to yet again go back many decades, but not too far back.

Let's just go to the 19 fifties, you see.

By that time, the Seattle Yama life was fading away.

Broad leaved trees, which were once needed for heating, cooking and fertilization, were replaced by oil, coal and synthetic fertilizers, while the country's woodland area was covered in 44% broadly trees in 18 50 By 1985 it was only 21% what replaced them.

It was Conifer trees, mostly Japanese cedar and Japanese cypress because they were deemed the most commercially viable.

Japan was so gung ho on planting those trees that 40% of the land became plantation, while only 60% remained natural forest.

I say natural in quotation marks because even that natural force number is misleading.

Japan is covered with 67% with trees.

However, on Lee, 2% of that is the original old native forest.

Most of the forest in Japan has bean changed by man.

At the start of the 19 fifties, Japan was still largely self sufficient force lumber.

But by 2002 it hit its lowest point, importing 80% of all it would from overseas.

So what?

Well, for starters, Ah, lot of those early foreign imports came from Southeast Asian countries like Indonesia, where they didn't have the same kind of sustainable force practices that Japan had.

So while Japan kept its forests, other countries didn't.

But in fact, Japan's forestry practices weren't sustainable as well.

This is why I then wanted to call the video why Japan didn't see the forest for the trees.

Japan was so focused first on plant in specific trees, then on getting cheap imports that it didn't see the bigger picture of what it was doing, not only to foreign forests but to its force as well.

So on its plantations, the essentially created model cultures a single species of tree row after rope, just like modern day agriculture, where it's rice row after row for corn, row after row toe work properly, they need to be tended to.

They need to be waited and, in the case of trees, fend because Japanese tree farmers could no longer compete with foreign markets, they couldn't make a living, and many of these plantation forests became untended.

This had severe environmental, economic and health consequences from overhead Conifers.

Cone bearing trees look dark green and beautiful, but if not properly managed, sunlight cannot reach the ground and they could be virtual dead zones for biodiversity.

For example, while Japanese dare are badass, they're also badass in that they're destroying the forests, since they can thrive in the plantation forests while their natural predators cannot.

Because of this, every year 300,000 deer are killed.

But these untended monoculture forests also have a negative effect on the people as well.

Because farmers could no longer make a living tending to the forests, they moved to the city, where, as there used to be half a 1,000,000 force your workers in the fifties.

There are now only about 50,000 but even the city people didn't go away unscathed.

All that pollen from the trees called Kocaman Boki, our national sickness.

Technically, it's pollen.

No, CeCe are allergy to pollen.

Those beloved Cyprus and cedar trees release a lot of pollen, especially when they're mature and untended.

Combined that with the increasing car emissions that could break down the pollen and the increase in the size of cities that can let it float around instead of being absorbed into the earth.

And you got a pollen storm brewing.

Half of Tokyo's residents suffer from the effects of cedar tree pollen.

That's part of the reason why mask our soul popular in Japan.

So it's because of all these problems associated with not tending to these non natural forests, both environmentalists and the Japanese government degree that some of its trees should be cut down.

No, that was how our woodlands looked when we started off tangled and strangled with vines.

Tree's sick, no light reaching the ground.

But that's what happens.

Would you let in the light?

10% of light should reach the forest floor on.

This is true for forests all over the world, 10% on what happens to be clear.

This is not clear cutting trees, but rather thinning.

Thinning is selectively harvesting trees, ensuring that the forest grows stronger.

Like I said, I didn't start making this video intending to say those.

But chopping down trees can have positive effects for the environment, the economy, the people and, yes, even climate change.

How can this be?

Well, thinning on artificial forest can help it recover its biodiversity.

But doesn't cutting down trees lower its ability to capture so, too, which would increase the pace of climate change?

Well, this is probably the most controversial point.

What creates a better carbon sink thinning a forest are leaving it alone?

Well, the theory is that pinning a force allows the remaining trees to grow better and be able to better absorb more Seo to.

However, global Studies I read showed that while in the long run, manage force will outperform non manage forests, the return on investment takes a really long time like 120 years long, which we don't have.

Although a study on Japan's force in regards to its plantations concludes that their carbon capture would increase in the near term if thin, intensively all in all, it seems that Japan's artificial forests would benefit from being managed better.

I eat having some of its trees cut down.

This would bring back more diversity, improve the environment and even create jobs that can help revitalize rural economies.

But we didn't only countries we also planted.

You see that black patch shut the back there.

That's the national forest, and the really beautiful forest is ours.

You don't get allergies when you come to our place.

Trees are a great thing, and that's what I am a part of team trees.

It's an initiative to plant 20 million trees around the globe by 2020 by raising $20 million Team Trees is working with the Arbor Day Foundation to plant the right trees in the right place for the right reasons.

And after all the research I did for this video, that sounds like a great plan to me.

For every dollar donated, one tree will be planted.

Go to team trees dot org's help plant those trees.

Thanks for watching.

See next time.

Bye.

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