Japan to replace cedars with low-pollen trees to tackle hay fever

Cedar pollen allergies were estimated to have affected 39 percent of the population in Japan in 2019 …

This 39% is skewed by subjects under the age of 10 or over the age of 59. 

According to this 2019 study, over 45% of all subjects between ages 10 and 59 indicated cedar pollen allergies. And these are just cedar pollen allergies. The percentage is higher when including all pollen allergies.

Additionally, the report cites the findings from a few separate studies, one in 2016 showing that 48.8% of residents in three surveyed Tokyo wards/cities had cedar pollen allergies. The allergy rate exceeded 61% for subjects in the 15-29 age range and 57% for those ages 30-44. Again, this includes only cedar pollen allergies. The percentage affected by all pollen allergies would be higher.

Finally, these studies were done in 2016 and 2019. With such a high incidence rate in the 15-29 age group back then, we would expect to see greater overall percentages if a study were conducted today.

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Full report: https://www.env.go.jp/chemi/anzen/kafun/2022_full.pdf

meet housing demand during Japan's period of rapid economic growth after the end of World War II.

With declining population now, less people will make less housing demand.

Great.

Cutting down yet more trees!

The miserable looking stumps with a few straggly leaves in my town remind me that Japanese people truly dislike nature and greenery.

Replace one monoculture with another? Do it right Japan, rewilding.

Japan was very slow to act on this issue because the medical lobby opposed it, as the treatment of these allergies is an important source of income for them.

Finally, there is some action on this after decades?

Yet, who will cut down these trees?

Will PM Kishida grab a chainsaw and show the way forward?

There is a real shortage of young Japanese willing to do dangerous and difficult jobs.

Will foreigners be brought in to do this?

If so, what do the Japanese people think of this?

Does it matter what they do think?

These sugi ("cedar") plantations are monocultures. Nothing like natural forest.

Great.

Cutting down yet more trees!

The miserable looking stumps with a few straggly leaves in my town remind me that Japanese people truly dislike nature and greenery.

Japan was very slow to act on this issue because the medical lobby opposed it, as the treatment of these allergies is an important source of income for them

Any source ?

I do not thing the medical lobby has a say on this, as long as the replacing trees are less harmful

Replace one monoculture with another? Do it right Japan, rewilding.

Exactly!

It would be nice to read that they are doing it at least in part to support biodiversity and help restore/expand the native forests and species of trees.

Very timely.

Very slow to change Japan.

The cedar forests are a zombie forest offering next to no goodness for birds, bugs and larger animals such as bears .

A mixed deciduous forest full of oak, beech and native Japanese hard wood trees would bring back much need biodiversity in the forests and also tackle the ever present issue of pollen allergies.

Hurry J gov and get the cedars felled and new mixed forests grown already!!

I know a lot of people suffering from this Man Made catastrophe. Millions of Japanese dread the February through June months due to the Pollen from these Cedars. Replace them ASAP please but do it with a mixture of trees that would be indicitive of a more natural Japanese forest.

@dan Right, you are. It will take more time and effort to plant a diverse native replacement forest, but the effort is worthwhile for people, animals and plants.

The miserable looking stumps with a few straggly leaves in my town remind me that Japanese people truly dislike nature and greenery.

This could not be more irrelevant to the story. It is talking about planted conifer forests, the nature equivalent of a rice field made of one species of tree. About 90% of such plantations were effectively abandoned at some time in the past, which makes them mostly worthless as timber. Thanks to no or little thinning after the original mass planting, the plantations are super dark inside and have no understory like a natural forest. No nuts, no berries, no edible plants, and no support for wildlife. The final kick in the teeth is that such trees throw up clouds of pollen that make most of the population ill. It is the most costly thing the health system has to treat.

The best thing would be to chop them all down and let the area rewild. We cut down about 100 sugi behind our house back in 2008. 10 years later there were 10m high trees on it.

@kohakuebisu Somehow MITI couldn't foresee that imported timber products from countries such as Canada and Indonesia would be less expensive. It's a real boondoggle.

Good. Progressively replace a high pollen monoculture with a mixed planting of lower pollen, climate resilient species capable of coping with the weather Japan will have in the coming decades.

Labour will be their biggest problem. If they block migrant labour like the UK is doing, it just won't happen.

""Cedar pollen allergies were estimated to have affected 39 percent of the population in Japan in 2019, up sharply from 16 percent in 1998, according to a nationwide survey of ear, nose and throat doctors and their families.""

Cedar Pollen is the most painful allergy I have ever experienced, it burns the nose, the eyes, the throat, causes headaches, it effects the ears and will cause hearing loose too.

No medicine has worked so far, only a NAZAL decon. even that burns the nose too.

Surprised.

As this is not a new topic at all, I thought this was started years ago - truly.

The sands of time sometimes get blocked.

One monoculture proving to be a blight on another monoculture... is there a metaphor here?

Cut them down, and if there’s not enough time just burn them down.

can’t happen soon enough.

Cedar wood is naturally resistant to insects like termites . . . . therefore, should they be replaced, the replacement trees should have similar beneficial properties . . . . See also,

https://stoptinythreats.com/termite-resistant-wood/

Why not cut down a lot of the trees, use what can be used and leave the rest on the forest floor to let in new natural growth? Seems a lot cheaper than replanting trees carefully selected by a government that brought the problem in the first place.

We can no longer visit Japan during hay fever season - it's so debilitating and depressing to have severe hay fever the whole time we're there.

planting those cedar trees is a crime against humanity!

Rather than focusing on species with low pollen, they ought to focus on plantingt the different kinds of native trees that would have been there before the cedar was planted. (perhaps they are, but it wasn't mentioned in the article)

So, just to get this straight... the government is going to "speed up" felling forests that were scheduled to be felled in the 70s and 80s?

Down here in Miyazaki and Kagoshima we have a massive industry based around sugi. New areas of forest are constantly being felled with new saplings planted soon after. It can take 40 years before they reach maturity and can be harvested. Introducing new low pollen varieties is great but any possible impact is decades away.

Pretty much impossible to carry out this latest cunning governmental plan without foreign labour, as others have mentioned. Therefore, won't be happening.

Down here in Miyazaki and Kagoshima we have a massive industry based around sugi. 

According to the above report, Miyazaki, Akita, and Iwate are the three prefectures with the greatest cedar (sugi) growth.

For hinoki, it’s Gifu and Kochi prefectures.

Drug manufactures will not like this. Less yellow dust means lower profits. Refreshing!

Unfortunately, I don't forsee this changing anytime soon.

Chopping down cedar trees might be feasible... But bio-retrofitting entire forests as well? Seems unrealistic. Don't get me wrong it sounds wonderful in theory but like many grandiose past suggestions the real challenge is whether such a project can be undertaken in reality.

Rather than focusing on species with low pollen, they ought to focus on plantingt the different kinds of native trees that would have been there before the cedar was planted. (perhaps they are, but it wasn't mentioned in the article)

I took it to be implicit that that is what they would end up doing.

Large parts of Japan still have the native forests and they are attractive, especially in Autumn, and in my experience do not lead to hayfever.

GBR48, you keep posting such comments about UK immigration policy:

Labour will be their biggest problem. If they block migrant labour like the UK is doing, it just won't happen.

But UK long term immigration in 2022 and 2023 was approx 1.2-1.3 million / year, the highest ever and 2x the level of 10 years ago. So it’s not clear (for me) what point you are trying to make.

We might almost conclude that if they ‘block’ migrant labour like the UK then there should be plenty… ?!

To achieve the goal, securing a labor force for logging work, stirring demand for cedar lumber and increasing the production of low-pollen seedlings will be needed, the white paper said

So, there it is. It’s a ‘white paper’. In other words, it’s just an idea with no plan on how to achieve it. They state a 20% reduction by 2033. They’ll be lucky to get a 20% reduction by 2133.

It would take 30-50 years to achieve.

I wonder what they will do with all the wood?

Negative Nancy: "I wonder what they will do with all the wood?"

They'll stop asking if you want waribashi or not.

For those worried about the same situation arising again, the article specifically states “The government will accelerate the felling of cedar forests and replace them with seedlings or other tree species that release less pollen.

When Japan has larger numbers of migrants then something will be done.,,

These sugi ("cedar") plantations are monocultures. Nothing like natural forest.

Sugi isn't actually Cedar even tho they call it that

Sugi is Cypress

so, so let's review a little:

there's an akiya problem which can't be solved because each of these houses does have an owner.

the guvment wants to start the nuclear power plants, but the local guvments block them.

but now that a white paper says it should be done, all the cedar trees, most of which are on private property, are suddenly going to be cut down. on whose order? with whose consent? by whom? on whose nickel?

a commitee has declared 'let there be no cedar trees!' but the commitee doesn't have the power of God.

let them start on my land! (and please replant hinoki). alas, i don't have the power of God either.

During a typhoon a sugi fell and just missed my house. It was so near it broke a gutter, brought down my woodstove's chimney and ripped a mosquito net. I went to the city office to find out what to do about the sugi. They told me to write to the owner of the land. I asked who owned the land. They told me to go to the land office. I told them I had already done so but the letter was returned because the address was out of date. I asked if they could give me the correct address. They told me they couldn't . I pointed out that they should have an address to send their land tax bill to. They said it was forest land and it was not taxed. I asked if I could cut some of the trees down as it was impossible to contact the owner. They told me I couldn't. Why not? Because they belong to someone. Who? We don't know.

I somehow don't think the government will manage to get around this. They will just run around in circles getting nowhere. They will do their best to do it, but won't get anywhere because the owner of the forest died years ago, so they cannot contact him.

Of course, there is a simple solution. Tax forest land. If the tax bill sent to the registered owner at the registered address is no paid, auction the land to pay the tax bill.

The other way of reducing the quantity of sugi is to replace it with solar panels. That is actually happening in my area although most solar panels seem to be placed on good agricultural land.