Forest near Fukushima nuclear plant turning into high-radiation jungle

A forest area near the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant is covered in a jungle of weeds, burying a forest of cedar saplings, in the Fukushima Prefecture town of Okuma. (Mainichi)
拡大写真


Forcing his way through the bush near the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant on Aug. 9, Kimio Akimoto, head of the Futaba regional forestry cooperative, surveyed a rough mountainside.
"If degrading of the mountain progresses, a natural disaster will certainly occur," he says.

The forest in Okuma, Fukushima Prefecture, contaminated with radiation from the Fukushima nuclear disaster, has become overgrown with weeds. Unless the prefecture's forests are decontaminated, it will become impossible to maintain the mountains within a 20 kilometer radius of the damaged nuclear plant on a long-term basis.

Dressed in a radiation suit, Akimoto struggled to find a privately owned forest that the forestry cooperative is in charge of looking after.
"It should be around here somewhere," he murmured.
Cedar saplings were planted on a slope in the area in neat rows, but the mountainside has since turned into a jungle of weeds that stand taller than he does.

The saplings are about 80 centimeters tall. But they are covered by Canada goldenrod plants and ferns, and the trees are growing more slowly than normal. Hardly any sunlight reaches the saplings, and their trunks are thin.
"If the undergrowth isn't removed for another two years, the saplings will choke and die," he says.
Undergrowth needs to be cleared away from cedar and cypress saplings once a year for five years after they are planted; otherwise weeds will steal their sunlight and they will wither.

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