When a reconstruction minister gives his official stamp of approval, it will be forever linked to the "
When a reconstruction minister gives his official stamp of approval, it will be forever linked to the "
Young stamp engravers from around Japan carved out a new official seal of the reconstruction minister on Feb. 28, made from the so-called miracle pine of Rikuzentakata, Iwate Prefecture.
The 27-meter tree was the only one among 70,000 pines in the famed Takata Matsubara forest to survive the more than 13-meter-high tsunami waves, which devastated the city.
The pine died due to saline contamination in the soil from the seawater in 2012, but the city preserved it in July 2013 by inserting a pole through the trunk in a project that cost 150 million yen ($1.25 million).
Aiming to assist the city’s recovery efforts and spotlight the craftsmanship of seal engravers, the Federation of Japanese Seal Engravers Cooperatives came up with the idea to produce the minister’s official stamp with the tree.
The reconstruction agency and Japan Youth Hostels Inc., the owner of the land plot where the tree formerly stood, gave the go-ahead to the project.
On Feb. 28, 19 young stamp engravers gathered in Tokyo and demonstrated their skills in carving the stamp in turn. It took about three hours to complete the official stamp, which will be presented to reconstruction minister Wataru Takeshita on March 9.
“I used to frequently visit Takata Matsubara forest before the disaster, and I engraved the stamp praying for the prompt recovery of the region,” said Ryo Kikuchi, a 34-year-old stamp engraver from Ichinoseki, Iwate Prefecture, who participated in the project.