Beech dying along the Tateyama Kurobe Alpine Route - Tourism Development and Environmental Impact in the 1990s

Beech dying along the Tateyama Kurobe Alpine Route - Tourism Development and Environmental Impact in the 1990s

In the 1990s, tourism in Japan was becoming increasingly popular, and the Tateyama Kurobe Alpine Route was attracting attention as a popular tourist attraction connecting the Kurobe Dam and the Tateyama Mountain Range. However, serious environmental problems were developing in the background. According to a Kyoto University study, a quarter of the beech forests along the route had already died, and it was feared that most of them would be lost in the next 15 to 20 years. One of the causes was exhaust gas from tourist buses and private cars, with about 30,000 vehicles driving along the route each year, and air pollution was believed to have weakened the trees. In addition, it cannot be ignored that the effects of global warming were beginning to affect vegetation in high mountain areas. At the time, Japan was taking measures to deal with pollution and dioxin problems in urban areas, but it was late in taking measures for mountain tourism areas. This situation provided an oppor
tunity to promote the philosophy of "eco-tourism" or "tourism in harmony with nature," and led to the consideration of regulating the use of private cars and introducing low-pollution vehicles in Tateyama Kurobe as well. The standing beech trees were not only a loss of landscape and ecosystem, but also a problem directly related to the sustainability of tourism resources, and the need for a sustainable tourism policy was strongly emphasized to society.