Greening Atomic Bomb Survivor Trees: Ecological Literacy and ENGOs as LIASE Institutional Partners

Abstract

This article considers Oberlin College’s collaboration with an environmental non-governmental organization (ENGO) in Japan, centering on projects designed to strengthen ecological literacy in the college curriculum, and in the community outreach component of a LIASE implementation grant. The NGO, Green Legacy Hiroshima, exists to “safeguard and spread worldwide the seeds and saplings of Hiroshima’s A-bomb survivor trees” (被爆樹木, hibaku jumoku in Japanese). Trees, however, tell only so much of their own stories. Oberlin’s LIASE team developed course units, community outreach initiatives, and supplementary materials in order to encourage knowledge about the social, historical, and ecological aspects of the environmental issues that trees face in wartime and the nuclear age. Curricular and community engagement distinguishes the Green Legacy Project from token tree planting.

Keywords

• Hibaku jumoku
• trees
• atomic bomb survivor
• environmental literacy
• radiological pollution
• environmental NGO