It’s a damn shame, but the famous ginko trees at Jingu Gaien, and almost 1,000 trees over 3 meters high in the entire park area are at risk of being cutting down in January 2024 by the real estate developers Mitsui Fudosan with the blessing of the Tokyo government and Governor Koike. They plan to also demolish the famous baseball stadium (4th oldest in the world, and where Babe Ruth once played) and the neighboring rugby stadium. All just to build two skyscrapers and a smaller tower and redevelop the park space.
It’s unnecessary and nobody wants it. There have been hundreds of thousands of people signing petitions to stop this from happening, and famous people like Murakami Haruki and the late Ryuichi Sakamoto speaking out publicly against this project. The site has also been listed on a “heritage alert” by The International Council on Monuments and Sites — known as ICOMOS, which works with the United Nations body UNESCO.
The developers were originally going to cut down trees starting in November 2023, but after the “heritage alert”, they were asked to redefine the parameters of their project and resubmit their proposal. It still involves cutting down many trees over 3 meters tall and is slated to begin in January 2024.
Hopefully they decide to stop this plan completely or at least redesign it to allow the majority of the trees, including these ginko trees, to remain standing.
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4 Comments
Was a great livestream even getting in the graveyard was kinda funny! Say, can you see why my comments with my Nature with Peter Kane channel don't appear on the chat? Can you figure it out? Hope not blocked my mistake…Thanks Cory.
A 1,000 trees?! The Gov should stop them. That is such a shame.
It’s absolutely disgusting what they want to do . We have enough skyscrapers and malls seriously .
❤Cory thank you so much for this live stream. Thank goodness this was identified as a heritage spot to save some of the trees but they are still cutting down almost all. This is terribly sad.
We need a strong petition to stop this culling. This is disturbing that trees that are hundreds of years old will be culled, and for what? For being too close to a new stadium?
Why don’t they change the stadium plans instead of culling the ancient trees and older trees. People come to see these trees.
Where is the park stadium going to be? With the trees gone, what kind of park will this be?
Gehrig and others played at the previous stadium. They will tear that down instead of fixing it upL