Green Tokyo's Sea Forest: Umi no mori

Umi no mori island park

 Manila has no more vacant land to convert into parks? No problem. There's this trend to reclaim land in Manila Bay anyway, why not build a park island instead, that's what the Japanese are doing in Tokyo as part of the  Green Tokyo project. It's a ten year project and it started in 2007. The incredible objectives:

1) To double roadside trees in Tokyo to 1 million

2)  Formation of a “green road network” connecting large scale plots of greenery with roadside trees

3) Creation of a green island in Tokyo as large as the Imperial Palace’s grounds (Development of Umi-no-Mori)

4) Creation of a green space with a size of 1,000 ha (equal to the total area of 1,500 football fields)
 Here's how they will accomplish this:
Roadside utility poles will be replaced by trees. (If this is done in Manila, this will solve the thick bundles of cables threatening to fall on passers-by) Roadside trees will be increased to approximately 700,000 trees in four years. They will be doubled to 1 million trees by the end of fiscal 2015.• All utility poles along metropolitan roads within a central core area will be removed by the end of fiscal 2015. Utility poles along metropolitan roads mainly in commercial districts outside the central core area will also be removed. After removing the poles, trees will be planted to create a beautiful urban landscape and form a corridor of abundant roadside greenery, making Tokyo into a more livable city.

5) To wage a “green movement,” a Tokyo-wide campaign to gather momentum for greening and to encourage action

The "Sea Forest," or "Umi no Mori," will transform 88 hectares of reclaimed land, a 30-meter deep mound of alternating layers of landfill, into a dense forest of nearly half a million trees.

The 12.3 million tons of waste from Tokyo's households was collected between 1973 and 1987.

"Umi-no-Mori (Sea Forest) will become a symbol of our recycling-oriented society through which Japan, a country that has a tradition of living hand-in-hand with nature, can make an appeal to the world about the importance of living in harmony with the environment," says the chief architect of the project, Tadao Ando.

The architect also emphasizes that citizens will be rewarded for their contribution to the forest: not only will it become a refreshing retreat for stressed out city workers, it will also create a cool ocean breeze to sweep through the capital and cool its sweaty denizens in summer.

This oxygenated "wind tunnel," as the planners call it, should blow over to the fish market in Tsukiji, from where it will pass through Hibiya and Shinjuku parks via the Imperial Palace.

As part of Tokyo's ongoing reinvention as a green city, the planners also mention that an increase in tree-lined streets will help to further reduce the "heat island effect" that turns the capital into a furnace in late July through September.

Read more about this fantastic project here & here