Mi-run Village Creating Native Forest for Life

Company name

Meal Care Co. Ltd.

Date of event

2020/09/05

Place of event

Hoyasu 731-1, Nagano City, Nagano Prefecture

Number of participants

160

Number of planted trees

3000

Tree species

Quercus serrata, Q. acutissima (deciduous oak), Q. myrsinaefolia (evergreen oak), Cerasus speciosa (cherry), Magnolia Kobus (kobushi magnolia) etc. 31 species

Participation of advisors

Prof. Dr. Emerita of Yokohama National Univ. Kazue Fujiwara

Activity targets, ideas, etc.

Due to the flooding of the Chikuma River, the head office of Meal Care Co. Ltd. was damaged and all the surrounding private houses, fields, shops, etc. were damaged as well. Meal Care Co. Ltd., with a dietary education mission from the region to Japan, planned to create a forest on the site to protect the region and the lives of the people.
110 people from the region and the prefecture participated in this tree planting festival. In the midst of the corona wreck, the employee team discussed many times and was able to carry out the event by maintaining a social distance and hold a tree-planting festival that avoided the “three crowds.” Approximately 50 volunteer employees, including the management, distributed all the seedlings to trays and bark for mulching to the planting area, and all of them became leaders and venue staff and planted 3000 trees. Some general participants canceled coming, but in the end, about 110 people participated.

Other comments

Many times, there were opinions that the tree-planting festival during the corona wreck should be canceled, but the emphasis was shifted to how it could be done.
① Minimize the tree planting area of the general public, ② Allocate one section (9 m2) to groups of 2 to 3 people, ③ Place 1.8 m between the lots, and employees will plant trees there the day before, ④ After the tree planting is completed, disperse without holding a closing ceremony. This allowed us to avoid the three crowds.
People had complained that they couldn’t go out and couldn’t do anything because of the coronavirus, but the participants were finally able to do something and enjoyed it.
In a cable TV interview, the children answered, “I want a lot of trees to grow and look like a forest.” “I’m doing it because I wanted the trees to grow well.”
Our motto is that food education, tree planting education, and safe food are born from a healthy environment, and we learned much from the flooding of the Chikuma River last year. We created native forest for life for regenerating the Mi-run Village to prepare for future disasters, and coexist with nature where various creatures grow.