Write a report on field visit to a river
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Zenpukuji River is a 12 km tributary of the Kanda River, which is located in Suginami-ku of Tokyo, Japan. The River’s appearance is no different from any other urban river in Japan. However, its future is bright for a great number of people from a wide variety of age groups, are currently working side by side to restore the river into a more environmentally healthy river.
On the day of the field trip, we were blessed with fine weather, despite the rain of the previous few days. This time, 8 students joined the trip, along with Professor Watanabe. (We met very early in the morning, so many of the other students must have preferred to sleep in…!) Anyways, with the weather on our side, we were off to Zenpukuji Park for a nice hike around the river.
DSCN6486The morning river tour was led by Professor Shun’ichiro Nakamura of Nagoya University, who is also the current co-chair of the Committee to Restore Zenpukuji River to a Rural River, in short, Zenpuku Frog. There were about 15 participants of the tour excluding ourselves, creating a very diverse group of people, which included local environmentalists, educators, civil engineers, scientists, and even a few junior high school students. Most of them also participated in the symposium, which took place in the afternoon.
The Zenpukuji River tour started off by observing a 150 meter long waterway, which runs through the Zenpukuji Park. It is currently called the “Dream Waterway” by the local people, and actions for its revival, such as picking up trash, and trimming harmful plants are frequently planned and undertaken by members of the Zenpuku Frog. According to the people of the Committee, this waterway was previously called the “Firefly Waterway”, because fireflies were commonly seen in the area long ago. Now it is so far from such a clean state, that such fact is becoming more of a myth, and thus the people have renamed it.
furthermore, the rest of the tour made apparent that despite the people’s actions, Zenpukuji River is still a very urbanized, and artificial river. Both sides of the river are mostly fixed with concrete, and surprisingly the river actually smelled pretty bad due to the sewage system. Professor Nakamura also took us to areas where the river used to run, which was now a narrow street as evidence of how the river was forcefully straightened by human construction.
In the afternoon, we also participated in the Zenpukuji River Symposium hosted by the Zenpuku Frog. The two and a half hour symposium was so packed with valuable information about rivers and environmental conservation that it is very difficult for me to make a full report about it on such limited space!! I will try to pick up the most prominent points discussed at the meeting, and explain it in as much detail as possible.
First of all, a presentation of “the Potential of Dream Waterway”, was made by Professor Yoshitomi Tomoyasu of Tokyo Gakugei University, followed by another lecture titled, “Waterfront Environment Made by All: Initiatives at Kamisaigo River” by Professor Hironori Hayashi of Kyushu University. The presentation by Professor Hayashi was very interesting for it traced the actual process of how Kamisaigo River was successfully transformed into a rural river by the cooperation of many different actors. Throughout the presentation, he stressed the importance of gaining the understanding, and motivating the local people to get anything done. The natural environment is a subject so vast that it cannot be changed easily by just the enthusiasm of specialists, such as scholars and scientists. In the case of Professor Hayashi, he explained to us that he made models of the river to every meeting with the locals as a means of effective communica
In the back of the room where the symposium took place, numerous drawings of the desirable future of Dream Waterway done by students of Igusa Elementary School was put up by the members of Zenpuku Frog. The drawings were all ambitious, and very much represented the strong affection of the children towards Zenpukuji River. It was very nice to see that at least some children, in this completely urbanized city of Tokyo actually longed to play in nature.
Overall, throughout this field trip to Zenpukuji River, I was able to recognize the importance of the involvement of a wide range of age groups when it comes to environmental conservation. This is not a difficult task, because nature is a common resource, available to every living creature on earth. The difficulty is in its maintenance; how can the natural environment be reused and restored appropriately in the years to come?
i hope u enjoy reading it and hope it helps u