Indigenous Forests Protect Life, Heart and Genes
10.2185/jjrm.57.827
- Author:
Akira MIYAWAKI
- Publication Type:Journal Article
- MeSH:
Forests;
seconds;
protect;
Green color;
medical care
- From:Journal of the Japanese Association of Rural Medicine
2008;57(6):827-832
- CountryJapan
- Language:Japanese
-
Abstract:
We now enjoy an affluent, comfortable and efficient lifestyle that human beings have long dreamt of. And yet we feel lurking anxiety about the present and the future. Some youths do not have any definite aim in life or foresight, and some people are alarmed by nature destruction, environmental pollution, erratic climate change, global warming and so on.When it comes to medical care, there are serious shortages of physicians in rural areas and in specific departments such as obstetrics and gynecology and pediatrics. The average life expectancy of Japanese has increased, but various forms of disease including cancer and dementia debase the quality of life.Affluent urban life today is supported by the countryside, which undertakes foodproduction and preserves the natural environment. The government should make more efforts to correct disparities between urban and rural areas in population, economics, culture, and medical care.We live now at a crossroads in the 4-billion-year long history of life on the earth. The thread of genes has continued to the pressent. It must be handed down to posterity. Advances in medical technology have contribute greatly to the protection of our life and genes. Indigenous forests have unsophisticatedly fostered our health, physical and mental, soul, and have protected our genes.We humans and other animals alike are consumers in the ecosystems on the earth. Greenplants are the only producers, and bacteria and fungi are decomposers. Green plants, especially multi-layered native forests that enrich green plants, are the very foundation of human existence.Japanese were particularly zealous in protecting and bequeathing native forests in each community, and reforesting after destroying forests to construct paddy fields, roads and villages just as other peoples did in other partsof the world.Native forests in most areas of Japan are laurel forests. Main tree species of laurel forests have evergreen thick watery leaves and deep taproots grabbing thesoil. So, multi-layered native forests have the function of environmental protection including noise insulation, windbreaking, air and water purification, and water retention, as well as the function of disaster mitigation, minimizing damage from storms, earthquakes, fires and tsunamis.Forests absorb CO2 in the air through photosynthesis and fix carbon as an organic compound in the tree body. This helps curb global warming. In the age of deteriorating biodiversity, it is worthy of special mention that there are so many tree species and so many species of birds, insects and small animals in an indigenous forest as well as bacteria and fungi living in the soil. Thus, indigenous forests maintain rich biodiversity, and are the real green environments that protect our life, heart and genes.However, indigenous forests are rapidly vanishing from almost all the areas of the world. Where native forests still remain, they should be preserved. Where native forests are destroyed, they should be restored and regenerated by all possible mean. We conduct phytosociological field surveys to determine main tree species of a given district, nurse their potted seedlings until theroot system fully develops in the containers, and plant them mixed and densely with local citizens. In this ecological plantation survival rate is good, and seedlings grow steadily to form a quasi-natural forest in 10-15 years.Every one of us should plant seedlings for ecological reforestation here and now, especially around hospitals and clinics, and spread the reforestation movement to the whole world to protect our own life, heart and genes.
