For one thing, when I started this series in 2015, the main keepers of, say, Niiharu Citizen Forest were retired 60 or 70 somethings. In Japanese demography, this cohort is the typical baby boomers born by 1949 – 1950. They spent their prime days as a locomotive of Japanese economic development without experiencing starvation as their predecessors during war years. In 2015, they have been healthy grandpas and grandmas with stamina and money of generous pension. In addition, they are MANY. In this country of rapidly shrinking population, they are still the most numerous people contributing to the upside-down pyramid of demography. The management system of suburban forests in Megalopolis Tokyo utilized such very distinctive generation. It means, they are more than 75 years old in 2025. Even those mighty seniors are now “75 years old and up,” and often too old to operate chainsaws for 3 hours.
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| Yet, we’re fine. Thank you. |
Moreover, in 2026, 65 years olds are not as those baby boomers. Their prime age was spent during the lost 30 or so years of deflation. New retirees do not expect luxurious pension. Those mandarins for public pension system seriously talk about a “life without retirement: please keep on working until 100 years old.” It’s difficult expecting the same kind of dedication to neighbouring forests from them as those grandpas in 2015.
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| Even though we’re doing our best. |
Yeah. Grandpas and grandmas are still going strong for forest management in Yokohama and Kanagawa. But, death notices are to some extent regular announcement these days for morning assembly of Lovers Associations in Citizen Forest. Forestry sessions we forest instructors support in Kanagawa’s forest welcomes veterans whose average age is 75+. The amount of job gets done in a day is decreasing. The donation to Kanagawa Green Trust from non-corporate entities (i.e. often senior individuals) has nearly halved compared with the amount for 2015. Then, during the last mayoral election in August 2025, two candidates (Mr. Tanaka and Mr. Koyama) ran for office with the agenda to abolish Yokohama’s Green Tax and to shrink municipal projects for greenery, including the system of Citizen Forest. They lost the election but gathered 23% of votes. The incident becomes a wake-up call. Many people involved in Yokohama’s greenery are getting alarmed.
Actually, for more than 20 years the City Office for Yokohama has asked research firms to conduct opinion polls concerning City’s greenery. (The latest result is from here.) Interestingly, the result has not changed for at least 20 years. Everybody thinks maintaining greenery is important to keep the city’s environment nice. But those who actually act for the forests or city gardens are mainly 55 years or up. The majority of such people is 60 to 70 somethings. On the other hand, those who bear the large portion of city tax are working population, i.e. 30 to 40 somethings with kids in schools. The cohort has been answering healthy natural environment in neighbourhood is important for their family life, but “we don’t know what the city office is practically doing for this.” i.e. They do not know Yokohama Green Up Plan for environmental management (; my post for January 26, 2016). But they are contributing to a large share of Green Tax income without knowing the purpose of it. And there is materializing, rather urgently, a serious problem of aging population for greenery management in Yokohama.
Telling you the truth, the awareness of the issue has been shared within the committee members for Yokohama Midori-up (Green-Up) Plan Citizen’s Promotion Council. The former council members recapitulated the problem in their report, and left homework for the next members of the Council to tackle the issue, i.e. do something for public relation to Yokohama’s environment plan. True, Yokohama needs more money for school meals, nursery schools, medical systems, etc. etc. But it’s a different matter nullifying the Green Up Plan and its tax base for covering the cost of another issues. Yokohama’s plan is really unique in Japan for managing the greenery of our city and has been run well for the wellbeing of citizens since 2008. Two years ago, the people of the City Office for Osaka came to see how Yokohama was doing with the Green-Up Plan, and said “Wow, Yokohama is serious for the issue, isn’t it?” Oh yeah. But how to communicate with the people about this important issue? Those parenting generation is more and more familiar with SNS and short messages but not at all with the bureaucratic annual reports, aren’t they?
Anyway, the Council and the City launched last August the official page for Yokohama Midori-Up Action and hopes the information cycle of the forest to the people becomes shorter, more adjusted to busy parents. We’ll see if it is an effective tool for the child-rearing generation to be aware of Yokohama’s environmental policies. I personally think we should be proud of ourselves having a healthy community where some politicians can run for the office peacefully on the platform of controversial issue. But it would be definitely better to have discussions while sharing widely the reliable information about the topic regardless of the political stance. Difficult …
If you have any questions about Yokohama’s Green Tax and Green Up Plan, please make a contact with
Strategic Planning Division, Green Environment Bureau, City of Yokohama
横浜市みどり環境局戦略企画課
Phone: 045-671-2712
FAX: 045-550-4093
