What It Means to Create a Millennium Forest

The Point We Have Reached as of 2024

What does it truly mean to create a Millennium Forest?
By 2024, our answer has become clearer: it is not only about trees, but about people—and the relationships that grow alongside the forest.

A Forest That Welcomes the Whole Person

From the beginning, the Ehime Millennium Forest Association has followed a simple principle: participation is never obligatory. People may join as much or as little as they wish, according to their interests, concerns, and physical condition at the time. We do not evaluate or rank participants by experience, skill, enthusiasm, or attitude.

For those unfamiliar with forestry, volunteer work in the forest can feel intimidating. We therefore place great importance on creating an environment where anyone can participate with a sense of safety and ease.

Within such an atmosphere, participants gradually gain emotional space. As they encounter their unadorned selves, many begin to reflect quietly on a deeper question: What is my own role, or purpose, in life?

Sharing Time, Sharing Awareness

We value group sharing sessions held at both the beginning and the end of each activity day. At the opening session, participants talk about recent experiences, thoughts, or feelings they bring with them. At the closing session, each person reflects on what they experienced during that day in the Millennium Forest.

Through these simple practices, individual awareness is shared, and mutual understanding deepens naturally. Over time, these repeated moments of reflection have strengthened two core aspirations of the Association: to provide a place where people can encounter their true selves, and to explore future-oriented, circular ways of living.The Millennium Forest is gradually becoming an irreplaceable place—not merely a forest to be managed, but a space for profound human and ecological experience.

Continuing the Work, Together

Forest volunteer activities are held once a month, usually on the third Saturday. Tasks include maintaining walking paths, cutting bamboo grass, and removing vines. As I grow older, working across ten hectares has become physically demanding, and I am deeply supported by the presence of fellow volunteers.We also create opportunities for forest observation and hands-on experiences whenever possible. For us, entering the forest has become part of everyday life. For participants from urban areas, however, stepping into the forest—often for the first time—can be a powerful and moving experience in itself.

Learning from the Living Forest

Perhaps out of a sense of curiosity, I also try to share what the forest has taught me: how forest ecosystems provide diverse functions and services, and how these functions change as forests develop over time. Participants listen, reflect, and gradually incorporate these ideas into their own understanding of forest creation.Part 3 represents a shift from making a forest to living with one.
Here, the Millennium Forest reveals its deeper meaning—not as a completed achievement, but as an ongoing practice in which forests shape people, just as people care for forests.

Prologue：

This three-part essay series presents the life and work of Takeo Tsurumi, who has devoted his life to forest creation.He did not begin this work to be understood,
nor to be evaluated beyond his own conscience.
He simply continued, believing that time itself would respond.

# Professor Takeo Tsurumi　PhD, (retired)

# Ehime University

# Ehime Prefecture

# Reforestation