Elderly RM awardee greens deserts

This 97-year-old Ramon Magsaysay 2003 awardee is happiest wearing his high-knee boots and sun helmet.

Seiei Toyama, one of the two Ramon Magsaysay awardees for Peace and International Understanding this year, is a grandfather who gives a different kind of elderly guidance to the young ones: prevent "desertification."

"I have to leave my mission to younger people though I still wish to visit deserts a few times a year, as long as my health allows," Toyama said yesterday through a representative. He gave a lecture entitled "Greening the Desert with the Spirit of Volunteerism" delivered by his representative Shingo Nomura at the Ramon Magsaysay Center in Manila.

One-third of the earth’s soil is covered by desert, according to Toyoma, even as he warned that the unproductive consequence of desertification may lead people to fight each other due to food shortage.

Known as the "desert agriculturist," Toyama said mankind has to "transcend diversities arising from nationalities, religion and physical boundaries to achieve a common mission of co-existence and co-prosperity."

His noble aim of greening the deserts is not only to beautify more the earth but to avert food shortage in the future that is a cause for fights, if not war, he said.

Toyama’s physique may already be fragile but his heart and spirit endure.

"My aim in life is to prevent desertification because it is an obstacle to the survival of mankind and of earth. I want to transform the desert to green soil," Toyama told an audience largely composed of young students.

"I want to leave something, a meaningful legacy to society and the earth," he said.

Toyama said the 21st century will be the "age of the desert" with the desert area of earth "getting wider and wider every year."

Toyama cited a research conducted by the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) saying that about six million hectares turn into new desert areas every year.

The rate of expansion is increasing more rapidly, he said.

Toyama was born in Yamanashi, Japan but took a great interest in China’s deserts upon embarking on an extended research tour there after graduating from college with a degree on agriculture.

His trip to China was the first time he saw a desert. He had observed that in northwestern China, gourds and grapes and other fruits grow perfectly well in desert island.

He returned to Japan and then subsequently went back to China to apply his knowledge on the country’s deserts.

In 1990, Toyama started working with the Engebei Desert Development Model Zone in Inner Mongolia where scientists were battling severe desertification due to floods.

Toyama worked on development projects in the Yellow River area in China and later organized a program in 1991 called the Concerned Japanese for the Development of Deserts in China. He also dispatched the First Japanese Cooperative for the Development of Deserts in China.

It was during this time that the "volunteer spirit" for greening the desert was stimulated, he said.

"I believe that mere existence is meaningless and that human beings must serve society in order for their lives to have meaning," Toyama said, recounting how he devoted his golden years to desert greening after his retirement in 1979.

"I therefore believe that I must work for society even if I have to take personal sacrifices. Otherwise, mine will be a meaningless life," he said.

Toyama’s "green army volunteers" come from all walks of life. They have used their own money and tools in helping the "Great Old Man" green the deserts of China.

Since the Japan volunteer group was formed in 1991, more than three million trees have been planted in China’s deserts.

Toyama said he is now working to green the Kubuqi desert in Japan, which he said is nearly half the area of Taiwan.

"A dream must not end only as a dream. My personal belief is expressed this way: We can achieve something only if we start doing; nothing is done until we start moving," he said.