I put an objection to Mr. Paul Coleman a.k.a. “Earthwalker” about Minamiyama’s case in June 17/2009. But they banned me from their SNS website and maybe delete my objection. I feel a great disappointment for Mr. Coleman because he refutes to discuss about his mistake and he choose to axe his counterpart.
Here I post again my objection to Mr. Coleman and his wife Kikuchi Konomi.
I think Mr. Coleman dismisses the fact that the “Sea Forest” will be created on the land that owned by Tokyo Metropolitan Government. In contrast, Minamiyama is owned by 258 individual land owners and 2 companies.
These individual landowners are the descendents of the people who reclaim the land of Inagi hundreds of years ago. They are the descendents of NATIVE or FIRST PEOPLE of Inagi. But they have been suffered heavy taxes for 40 years. They even sold some good farms to pay the tax for their forest in Minamiyama. Then the farms had destructed and turned into residential district.
The “resident” who accuses the landowners of Minamiyama are the people who live on the land once was a good farm but must be sold to pay the taxes.
This is one of a case we have seen hundreds of times. A tourist come and sees the destruction of a forest. Tourist assaults the native people who must cut down their forest they inherited from their ancestors necessarily to keep their lives and farms. A light-minded and irresponsible action.
I think we must change our tax system immediately to save the forests like Minamiyama.
260 landowners pay approximately 100000000 JPY (near 1000000 USD) per year but they have very few earnings from those forests. In addition, they fear inheritance tax to come. If the inheritance occurs on a house, the heir forced to sell his father’s farm or house to pay inheritance tax. Or he becomes bankrupt.
They decided to cut down the forest and sell it before they face bankruptcy.
You should spend your money to save All the Minamiyama forest if you really want to. Just buy it. Or you can join some alternative action. An NPO started an action to save Minamiyama 7yaers ago. They had been negotiated with landowners for years and finally, they acquire additional 3% conservation.
