Hello
My name is Shigeatsu Hatakeyama. I am from Kesennuma.
My family, including myself, has been farming oysters.
My father started this business, and it was passed down to me.
Now, my sons have taken over it.
The business will be running for 100 years if my grandchild succeeds it.
I noticed that in order to make quality oysters,
it isn't good enough to just focus on the sea.
I realised that the rivers flowing into the sea as well as the mountains and
forests upstream are also important.
Since 1989, I have been planting trees in mountains with a slogan
"Forests are the Lovers of the Sea".
Next year marks its 25th year anniversary.
In fact, my work was recognized by
the UN back in February 9th,
and I went to New York
and received one of the five gold medals.
Thank you very much.
This medal is called "Forest Heroes".
The world of academia and politics is
The worlds of academia and politics are
usually seniority-based societies,
so I thought it would be normal
for the UN to elect someone working with mountains for Forest Heroes.
But the UN really has an eye for things. They elected
a fisherman like me instead.
They elected one hero from each of the five continents
Asia, Africa, Europe, North America, and South America.
Last year was the International Year of Forests.
It was the time for the world to think about the forests.
So, the UN decided
to elect a citizen who puts effort in
preserving forests, from each continent.
The Forestry Agency in Japan had a hard time
choosing a nominee from Japan.
In the end, as to help the victims of the tsunami disaster,
the government chose the fisherman
working on "Forests are the Lovers of the Sea".
I began thinking, "Japan is really becoming something. "
But, I had to become a finalist from Asia
to receive the gold medal.
It looked like the UN had huge controversy,
but they eventually elected me.
I am a little dissatisfied with the medal though.
It might be hard to see this, but
as for the design of this medal,
it has one huge tree
and a human on top of that,
and different creatures surrounding the human.
I guess they wanted to show bio-diversification.
But, they forgot to include the oysters.
Marine animals are not on here at all.
I was told that the design had already been made before electing me,
and they apologized for that.
But, when the world thinks about forests, it needs to think about
the sea as well.
When thinking about the sea,
we need to think about the forests as well.
We have finally arrived at that kind of era.
In fact, it was my first visit to New York.
The award ceremony at the UN was great, but
in New York, I saw something that was much more mind-blowing.
I was reading one thick book
called "Oysters and New York"
on the plane to New York.
Then, I found that New York Bay used to be the largest oyster production area
until around the 18th century.
The Hudson River flows into the bay.
When Hudson discovered the bay,
it used to be just like the Garden of Eden back then.
There were deep forests and various land animals.
In the sea, there were fish, shells, and even whales.
Every living species was found at the bay.
That's the kind of place it was.
And it is there where we saw the gradual influx of Europeans.
As some of you may know, the world's biggest oyster bar is under
a gigantic subway station called Grand Central Station in New York.
I really wanted to go there, so I did.
This oyster bar can hold 500 people.
But, when I got there,
the bars didn't have oysters from New York.
All of them came from somewhere far away. I wondered why.
The next day, I got on a free ferry that leaves from
the tip of Manhattan Island
to the island where
the Statue of Liberty stands
and then I returned.
On my way back,
I saw skyscrapers from the sea.
That startled me.
I realized that we can't eat oysters if forests are replaced by skyscrapers.
Ground zero was also there.
What, in the end, is civilization?
We usually live on land and see the sea from land,
so there aren't many chances to see the land from the sea.
I want you to get on a boat sometimes and take a look
at Sendai from the sea.
I guess you would describe the city as having
many buildings, as a sign of modern civilisation.
This is something we shouldn't be happy about.
There is no future for humans if we turn the environment
into somewhere we can't eat oysters.
Nuclear power plants and all other things are part of modern civilisation.
I was once again reminded of how amazing oysters truly are.
At one point in Japan,
people said the poor have to eat wheat.
But in 18th century America,
people said the poor have to eat oysters.
People really lived with only bread and oysters.
That shows how rich New York Bay was with oysters back then.
But, 200 years have passed
and New York Bay has turned into the place I just explained.
I went to New York
and learned from these oysters.
We also need to ask ourselves what role do forests, rivers and oceans play for oysters.
It is well-known that oysters feed on phytoplankton.
One oyster takes in about 200 liters of water a day.
Equal to one barrel.
Oysters eat phytoplankton in the water.
Leaf mold is necessary
for this plankton to nurture.
Salt water in the sea isn't enough to increase
the number of phytoplankton.
And that important constituent is iron.
When iron reacts with oxygen,
it gets oxidized
and becomes heavy,
and it starts to sink.
The sea experiences severe anemia.
Let me explain what iron means to plants.
First, plants photosynthesize.
And plants need iron when producing chlorophyll.
Please keep this in mind.
Then, plants need nitrogen and phosphorus as well.
They must take in nutrients.
But, plants can't take in nutrients without the help of iron.
Their structure is made that way.
On land,
a relatively abundant amount of iron is in soil,
so severe iron-deficiency doesn't happen.
But, as I said before
iron gets oxidized when it reacts with oxygen,
so the sea is in severe anemia.
So, for instance, the reason why we can
catch many oysters in Sendai Bay, where Kitakami River flows into,
is not solely because of salt water.
The river and forests in the background are also important.
This is the scientific mechanism behind the "Forests are the Lovers of the Sea."
Well, what would happen to oxidizing iron in forests?
First, leaf mold starts to build up.
When it builds up, it starts to decay.
As it decays, the last thing that remains
is a compound called humic acid.
Listening to this kind of talk makes you sleepy, right?
Even humic acid would fall asleep every time it hears this.
But, within humic acid,
the last thing that remains is fulvic acid.
That name is also hard to memorize.
Do I see many madams here today?
Try to remember fulvic acid as "furu-bo-san" or "an old mother's mountain" in Japanese.
This fulvic acid engulfs iron dissolved in water
as if it wraps iron up using floss silk.
Once iron gets wrapped by fulvic acid,
it flows into the sea from rivers.
But it floats on the sea
and never sinks,
and this is an important point.
Then, when it gets near phytoplankton, astonishingly,
the old mother takes off her clothes
and hands only iron to phytoplankton.
There are old mothers out there who do amazing jobs.
After all, mothers are just awesome, aren't they?
I thought this whole process would only take place
somewhere near Ishinomaki, Matsushima or Kesennuma.
But, I discovered something amazing two years ago.
Off the coast of the Kankasan island is called Sanriku, one of the 3 largest fishing places in the world.
School teachers may have explained that this is because
it is where the Oyashio Current collides with the Kuroshio Current.
If you go deeper
you actually find that teachers couldn't explain why much phytoplankton
is grown when the Oyashio collides with the Kuroshio Current,
creating a fishing place. They didn't have knowledge about iron.
Amazingly,
regarding the iron found on the coast of Sanriku,
you may ask how it is being supplied?
One of the sources would be the yellow sand from China.
But phytoplankton had been growing there even before the sand arrived.
So, where did the iron come from?
We found that fulvic acid iron
made in the forests of the Amur River running on the border of Russia and China
is carried to Sanriku by crossing the Sea of Okhotsk and
passing between the Kuril Islands.
Now we know why the UN elected me for Forest Heroes.
In fact, the world of the "Forests are the Lovers of the Sea" is spread
in a world-wide scale.
So, we know that
people from Sendai are saying that Sasa-Kamaboko is one of their local specialties,
and all of you know that it is made of cod, right?
If you want to keep Sasa-Kamaboko as
Sendai's specialty in the future,
we need to protect the environment around the Amur River
that flows on the border of Russia and China.
Otherwise, Sasa-Lamaboko will be wiped out from stores in train stations.
Even worse, we will never be able to enjoy sushi again either.
That would completely ruin Sendai's attractiveness.
I want to ask Tohoku University "What are you guys doing?"
One of my sons is a Tohoku University graduate, just so you know.
Therefore, our perspective is that
in order to protect the water on
the Pacific side of Japan, we must protect the forests around the Amur River.
Also the Yangtze River that flows in China
benefits the East China Sea and the Japan Sea.
We must drum these facts into our heads.
And with this, we must come up with a grand design for Japan.
Oysters are teaching all of these facts to us.
I recommend oysters to the professors of Tohoku University.
That's all I have to say today.
Thank you for listening.