Japan to Mull Ways to Remove Foreign Trees on Ogasawara Islands

August 16, 2018

Tokyo- Japan's Forestry Agency plans to set up a panel of experts as early as Monday to discuss ways to eliminate foreign tree species on the Ogasawara Islands and increase the number of trees indigenous to the remote Pacific islands.

Foreign trees such as Javanese bishopwood substantially affect the ecosystem of the island chain of Tokyo, which won UNECO World Heritage status in 2011.

The agency's previous efforts to remove these trees, including cutting them down and killing them with agents, made little headway. Seeds remained and germinated partly because the scale of such activities was small.

The panel will discuss suitable ways to restore forests on the islands, including large-scale work to replace foreign trees with indigenous species such as Ogasawara mulberry trees.

Soil characteristics and tree species depend on islands in the chain. The agency will take some five years to consider where to plant what species using data, including those obtained through the panel's monitoring.

The agency hopes that large-scale work to eliminate foreign species will help reduce costs thanks to a decline in the frequency of such activities. Jiji Press