2023-06-16 12:41:38
Dubai, United Arab Emirates (CNN) — Endless sand dunes rise once morest the scorching sun to form the highest peaks of the sandy desert, while a bright blue sky embraces this vast expanse.
You would be forgiven for thinking you landed in the Middle East. These are the Tottori Sand Dunes, which stretch along the coast of Japan’s sparsely populated Sannin region, the country’s own desert region.
The dunes stretch 16 kilometers (10 miles) along the coast, with the highest peaks over 45 meters (150 feet). It has been around for thousands of years, but it is slowly disappearing today, not because of climate change, but because of society’s efforts to protect the planet.
dwindling treasure
The Tottori Dunes are located on the west coast of Honshu, Japan’s largest and most populous island.
Tottori is the least populous prefecture in Japan. It is regarding 200 km (124 miles) from Osaka, and regarding 300 km (186 miles) from Hiroshima in the other direction.
The dunes formed over the course of 100,000 years as sand transported from the nearby Chugoku Mountains was deposited across the Sendai River into the Sea of Japan. Over the centuries, winds and currents have brought sand back to the beach.
The dunes were relatively unknown to outside of Tottori until 1923, when they made their way into the writings of famous Japanese author Takeo Arishima, turning them into a tourist hotspot.
Today, the dunes are a staple of the tourism industry in Tottori Prefecture, hosting an average of 1.2 million visitors annually. Tourists can visit the Sand Museum, go sand boarding, and ride camels.
The dunes generate millions in tourism revenue annually, but there is a problem: they are shrinking. The Tottori dunes are now only 12% of the size they were 100 years ago.
This is due to a highly successful afforestation project launched across Japan at the end of World War II. In Tottori, the initiative aimed to develop sand dunes into forests and farmland to help feed the community, reduce sand storm damage, and better nourish the environment.
“Many pine trees have been planted on coastal dunes throughout the Japanese archipelago to reduce flying sand,” explained Dr. Dai Nagamatsu, a professor at the Faculty of Agriculture at Tottori University who specializes in vegetation science and research on the dunes.
He continued, “Especially in the 20th century, when technology became more advanced, coastal forests were developed. Plantations were so successful that many coastal dunes were converted into fields and residential areas close to the coast, and disappeared.”
Parts of the prefectural capital, Tottori City, are built on some wooded sand dunes.
When the afforestation plan was launched, academics and tourism workers demanded that the local community conserve part of the desert, whether for the sake of the economy or for future research.
Local officials agreed, and designated the 395 acres in the roughest part of the dunes, which account for the remaining 12%, as a protected national park.
desert reconstruction
When the extent of the loss of the dunes began to become apparent, the community set regarding restoring them, but the leaves had already set off on a course of their own.
In 1972, efforts to cut down the forest that now outgrew the desert proved to be a difficult task. Once plant species were introduced to the area, they kept finding their way back in, choking the free-moving sands that created their famous ripples.
Vegetation began to grow in parts where the devastated forest used to stand, and scientists have struggled to curb the shrinking desert ever since.
Perhaps this should come as no surprise: Japan is so well-known for its afforestation that it has come to export its knowledge internationally.
The country is home to the famous Miyawaki method of afforestation, which was developed by botanist Akira Miyawaki in the 1970s and implemented on abandoned forests around the world, including in the Brazilian Amazon.
Today, volunteers meet regularly to remove stubborn plants growing in the fine sand, a tradition that began in 1991 and is considered a necessary step if they want to limit the expansion of green spaces.
The Tottori government transports additional sand to shore up the dunes, and additional steps such as banning writing by creating sand walls have helped the dunes get a little closer to what they looked like 100 years ago.
Can conservation and tourism coexist?
It’s easy to assume that allowing the dunes to turn into grassland would be better for the planet, but was the local government more concerned with the environment than its own interests should demand?
Many researchers feel that the dunes’ rare conditions make them worth preserving. At the Arid Lands Research Center at Tottori University, scientists from around the world conduct agricultural research in drylands.
“The environmental conditions of the Tottori sand dunes are different from those of the arid lands because of their humid climate,” Nagamatsu said. “But Tottori University promotes wasteland research using the ‘sandy’ conditions of the Tottori sand dunes and experimental facilities,” he continued.
Down the road from the research center, tourists experience an otherworldly sand adventure.
Tottori is Japan’s least populous prefecture, far from the crowded bullet train lines that connect tourists to the country’s most popular cities and sites. Getting there from Tokyo requires a transfer from the bullet train to the local train line, a domestic flight, or a long drive, and the sand dunes provide travelers with a compelling reason to struggle to get there.
This national tourist attraction is a treasure trove and a valuable research site, but it is also a financial anchor.
Back in the non-digital world, concerns regarding sand dunes persist. But local industry leaders are determined to continue promoting the region as much as possible.
Some scientists even speculate that as the climate continues to change, the tide may be tilted towards restoring sand dunes as a stronger preventive measure than afforestation.
In this regard, Nagamatsu said, “Given the tsunami damage in Japan that is likely to occur in the near future, there appears to be room to reconsider the existing coastal land use and consider restoring the natural dunes of the coasts of Japan.”
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