Urabandai’s Reforestation Project

The 1888 eruption of Mount Bandai triggered a landslide that buried 11 villages and killed 477 people, leaving the surrounding land completely barren. In the early 20th century, a reforestation effort led by Endo Genmu and forestry expert Nakamura Yaroku planted roughly 100,000 trees across 13.4 square kilometers. Many of the original red pines they introduced still stand along the Goshikinuma Pond Trail today, visible markers of what became one of the most ambitious ecological restoration projects of the Meiji era. Walking the trail, it is easy to forget the scale of destruction this landscape once endured.