The human toll from the Fukushima nuclear disaster made swathes of the towns surrounding the site largely uninhabitable. Nature has stubbornly reverted their landscapes back. This was the fate of one of those displaced residents, Sanjiro Sanpei. There are plans for long-term returns some day, but radiation levels are still too dangerous for people to move back home permanently. Sanpei was another local whose cattle farm was lost in the disaster. Rather, he now dons a protective white suit with dosimeter around his neck as he oversees a university team’s work on decontamination.
Sanpei’s interest in how proximity to Fukushima’s forests may affect human populations in the long-term underscores the complex relationship between nature and humanity in this region. “If the decontamination work is finished, we’ll come back and repair the damage to our house,” he stated, expressing hope for a future return.
This is Norio Kimura, who has been on a relentless quest to find and identify his missing daughter, Yuna’s, remains. She, along with her mother and grandmother, lost their lives in the subsequent tsunami. Six years since the tragedy, Yuna’s bones were finally found, but Kimura still searches for peace. He envisions transforming the space currently designated for storing contaminated soil into an “eco-museum,” which he believes would serve as a vital reminder of the disaster’s impact and convey important lessons.
“The only animals in danger in these areas may be humans,” remarked Vasyl Yoschenko, highlighting the ongoing concerns about human safety amidst lingering radiation. Kimura and his fellow residents are waging an uphill, but dogged, campaign to keep Kumamachi Primary School standing as a peace memorial. Equally challenging, they’re struggling with their own conflicted emotions about going home.
Kenji Nanba, director of the Institute of Environmental Radioactivity at Fukushima University. He provides great context about the nearly irreversible damage that radiation is doing to wildlife across the region. He goes on to detail how problematic radiocaesium is “circulated” by trees through light energy. Nanba envisions radiation-ravaged regions as future nature preserves. He imagines this amendment taking place once the contaminated soil has been moved to a final disposal site in 2045.
“It will be necessary to consider how the site should be used after the interim storage period ends,” Nanba stated. He makes a compelling case for the importance of setting aside nature preserves. At the same time, he notes, national conversations about this topic today are confusing.
Yet, the community is still living in this tenuous balance of grief and optimism. “Making the entire area into a museum would more realistically convey the history of this area that has been lost and the lessons of the nuclear accident,” Kimura articulated. His relentless pursuit of Yuna’s remains reflects a broader desire among residents to reclaim their past while protecting their future.
Wildlife is thriving across land once populated by humans. As weather extremes sharply illustrate, experts say that human activity continues to inundate these recovering ecosystems. Thomas Hinton notes that “at Chornobyl and Fukushima, the absence of humans following the accidents allowed wildlife to thrive temporarily.” As they start to reopen and people start to go back, he warns, those delicate ecosystems will be upset again by that human presence.
“I think it would be good to have a place to return things to nature,” Nanba remarked, highlighting the need for a balanced approach toward land use in Fukushima. “Most areas have been developed by humans, except for the mountainous areas where it is difficult for people to live,” he added.