Modern Times as Told by the Forest: Yakushima's Memories and Environmental Changes (Meiji - Showa - Heisei)

Modern Times as Told by the Forest: Yakushima's Memories and Environmental Changes (Meiji - Showa - Heisei)

In the Meiji era (1868-1912), as Japan became a modern nation with a policy of "wealthy nation and strong military" and "industrial development," Yakushima was not spared from this wave. The Yakusugi forests, once revered as sacred places, were transformed into objects of state resource mobilization: in the 1870s, logging of Yakusugi cedars began in earnest as a financial reconstruction measure for the Satsuma Clan, and under the Meiji government, the mountains came to be managed as state property with the introduction of the government-owned forest system. The forests were no longer "places of prayer," but became "measurable capital," fundamentally changing the lives and beliefs of the islanders.

Forest roads were cleared to challenge the steep terrain of Yakushima, and logging extended to areas over 1,000 meters in elevation. In the late Meiji period (1868-1912), a trolley line was built as a route to carry out cedar timber, which was eventually connected to the development of electric power, and timber production reached its peak in the Showa period (1926-1989). However, behind this prosperity, the mountain surface was chipped away, the water system changed, and the rain-collecting forests were transformed into "fragile lands. The Yakusugi cedars, which became components for utility poles and ships, symbols of modernization, were at the same time a threat to the ecological balance of the island.

However, in the hearts of the islanders, there remained a deep-seated feeling of "respect" as well as "use" of the forest. The lumberjacks who were engaged in logging prayed to the mountain gods before felled a tree and continued to follow the ancient custom of not stepping over the stump. The phrase "the forest raised us" was not a mere nostalgia, but a cultural confession that engraved the memory of our interdependence with the forest. While rice and kerosene from logging supported their livelihoods, the loss of the tranquility of the forests also gave rise to a "hunger in the heart" as the story goes.

After World War II, the wave of rapid economic growth swept over Yakushima Island, and the Power Development Corporation built a dam, expanded the road network, and promoted tourism. In the 1970s, however, over-logging led to serious forest degradation, and a movement to protect the Yakusugi cedars spread both on and off the island, leading to the opening of the Yakusugi Nature Museum in the 1980s, where annual rings of felled trees were displayed as "witnesses to time," telling the story of thousands of years of climate and human history. In 1993, Yakushima was registered as a World Natural Heritage site. At this moment, the forests that had once been cut down were redefined as "forests to be protected," and the history of destruction itself was turned into a rationale for conservation.

In the forests, traces of prayers remain, along with the stumps that were cut down. God and nature, industry and faith, destruction and regeneration - these conflicts have all been interwoven within the microcosm that is Yakushima. The phrase "the forest nurtured us" still spoken by islanders is not a reminiscence of the past, but an inheritance of the resolve to live with nature. The forests do not speak of human sins, but of the wisdom of living together, and their voices still echo in the sound of the rain and the swell of the wind.