OpenJapan
On March 11, a 9.0 magnitude earthquake struck Japan, causing an estimated $122,000,000,000 in damages.
14, 919 deaths, 5,279 injured, & 9,893 people missing
45,000 buildings destroyed, & 40,000 buildings damaged.
How can we help?
Japan needs helps rebuilding not just the homes destroyed, but sustainable solutions as well.
Can the land have a temporary sustainable use that aids in the reconstruction of Japan?
Along with new sources of energy, Japan will need a massive amount of building materials. Could timber work?
70% of Japan’s total land area is heavily forested, making it the highest percentages of forest cover of the developed countries.
40% of Japan’s forest consist of plantations with major species of cedar, cypress, and pine.
And 10% of Japan’s forests are formally protected.
But harvesting in Japan’s own forests is well below sustainable levels of growth and production due to the very high costs of extraction.
What about imports?
In 2003, Japan imported over 12.6M m of wood, making Japan one of the world’s largest importers of wood products. 3
Japan recieves a major of its wood from:
Finland
New Zealand
South Africa
Australia
United States of America
Russia
Malaysia
Indonesia
China
and Canada
This trend is unsustainable and is destructive to many of the world’s forests.
Despite the need to reconstruct Japan, timber may not be the right answer. In order to be truly sustainable, we need to rethink material use and consumption.
Could the world’s most ubiquitous staple, rice, hold the key to rebuild Japan and save the world’s forests?
Resysta has utilized rice stalks to create a replacement for tropical hardwood. Could Japan regear its lumber economy into a rice economy?
Could reused shipping containers help solve the material crisis?
Or do we make the area into a protected forest for carbon farming and future use?
These and other sustainable solutions could provide a temporary program to rebuild Japan and start a sustainable revolution.
Join OpenJapan June 10th - 12th