Watch the Video: https://vimeo.com/60263584Photographer: SYOGO OIZUMIThe 240 hectare Tokachi Millennium Forest is the brainchild of the entrepreneur Mitsushige Hayashi, who acquired the land with a view to offsetting the carbon footprint of his national newspaper business, Tokachi Mainichi. It is marketed as having a sustainable vision of a thousand years. This big thinking aims to preserve and prevent the further loss of natural habitats on the island to development. Hayashi believes that, in order for this vision to be viable, education is key. Helping it’s users to take ownership of the park is the best way to ensure it’s future. The park sits at the base of the foothills that lead up into mountainous terrain. Woodland sweeps up the slopes and brisk clear water follows the folds of the land. There are brown bears in the forests, hardy wild Hokkaido ponies on the hillsides and the seasons are as dramatic as the mountains and rivers that push through the volcanic terrain. The park aims to draw the public out into this landscape, to open their eyes to nature whilst introducing them to native plants, home grown produce and site specific art. The masterplan design, developed in collaboration with Takano Landscape Planning, includes a native Forest Garden, that has been made accessible with simple raised walkways, which allow visitors to experience the wild forest and native flora up close; a monumental landform named the Earth Garden, an environment made from a series of dynamic waves in the grassland, which coax people into the space by playing on their curiosity; the ornamental Meadow Garden, comprised of an adventurous massed planting of ornamental shrubs and 35,000 perennials that are related to and emulate the waves of plants that live together during the short growing season in the forest and a productive Rose Garden planted with 60 varieties of rose all hardy in this harsh climate.
View Original