Akiko Fukui (Executive Director, Acorn Club) - With the historical background of the 1990s

Akiko Fukui (Executive Director, Acorn Club) - With the historical background of the 1990s

In the 1990s, Japan was in the midst of an economic recession following the collapse of the bubble economy, and urbanization was progressing, accelerating the population decline in farming and mountain villages. As a result, satoyama and secondary forests, which were once closely linked to people's daily lives, were no longer managed properly, and the devastation of ecosystems due to neglect emerged as a serious problem. It was pointed out that artificial forests, which had spread as a result of postwar afforestation, could no longer fulfill their functions of recharging water sources and maintaining biodiversity if they were not cared for, and it was becoming increasingly recognized that protecting forests was an issue directly related to the survival of local communities.

Against this backdrop, the Acorn Club, established in 1982, was a pioneering citizen-led forest restoration organization. Akiko Fukui led the activities as secretary-general of the Tokyo branch, clearly sounding the alarm that "if secondary forests and planted forests are left unattended, the ecosystem will perish. As a mechanism to connect urban residents with the forests, she organized activities for participation in tree planting and tree thinning, and positioned reforestation as an everyday concern for citizens.

The slogan "one child, one acorn" is particularly symbolic, as children pick up acorns, grow them into saplings, and plant trees, thereby expanding efforts to combine environmental education with responsibility to the next generation. At Oak Village in Kiyomi Village, Gifu Prefecture, which became one of the centers of the project, furniture making and reforestation activities were combined and expanded in cooperation with local industries.

Fukui's efforts were a pioneering example of "participatory environmental protection," in which citizens themselves became involved in reforestation rather than government-led activities, and anticipated the trend of environmental NPOs and ecotourism that spread nationwide in the late 1990s. Her ideas and practices demonstrated the value that "the foundation of society is the regeneration of the connection between nature and mankind," even in a time of economic recession, and have had a major impact on the subsequent citizen environmental movement.