This year’s Japan Tourism Agency Commissioner’s Awards were announced on October 2rd, and Michinoku Trail Club was one of the three selected winners! The other two winners include the Setouchi Triennale Executive Committee of Setouchi City, Okayama. We want to thank the Tohoku Tourism Promotion Organization, which nominated us for this award, as well as Japan Tourism Agency, and the judges who selected us.This award is not just our award.
This award is for all the people who have supported the Michinoku Coastal Trail over these years. This is for Noriyoshi Kato, who after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami proposed a trail in Tohoku to the Ministry of the Environment, and for Mr. Kanda, who brought Mr. Kato to speak with the Ministry of the Environment. And even before that, there were the local people who asked the Ministry of the Environment to make use of the Rikuchu Nature Trail. This is for the successive bureau heads who propelled the Green Reconstruction Projects forward, those at the Ministry of the Environment supporting these projects, and for the successive staff at ranger’s offices along the coast, including of course the ranger who decided the base trail route from Hachinohe to Soma, sometimes carrying his son on his back while surveying the coastal route. We want to give special thanks to the Active Rangers.
To the local people who came to workshops to decide each area’s route, to the 28 municipalities who decided to work with the Michinoku Coastal Trail during the post-disaster confusion and who now attend twice-yearly meetings, perform surveys, and provide information about the trail’s status and maintenance. To the prefectures who repair and restore the route, to the consultants who support our workshops, to the groups in charge of already established trails who help guide us, to the travel agencies who have come to see the trail so many times. To the local groups who run the visitor centers and information centers that support hikers in each area and work with Michinoku Trail Club to maintain the trail, to the volunteers who help maintain the trail, to the local stores and lodging facilities that give discounts and other support to hikers, to everyone at the tourism associations. To the local guides, the many people who talk to hikers walking by, to the studios who help promote the trail, to the newspapers, television stations, magazines and other media, to the people at universities and research facilities who chose the Michinoku Coastal Trail as their research focus, to everyone at the Tohoku Tourism Promotion Organization which nominated us for this award. To our members who are supporting this organization, to our staff members’ families who support them, and their busy workdays.
And to our hikers, from within Japan and all over the world, who give us valuable advice for managing this trail, and who have been hiking our trail in the ways that suit them ever since the first parts of the trail were opened. Some are you are in fact hiking our trail even now!
Even after writing all these lines of text, there are still so many more people to thank. That is how many people we have to thank for the Michinoku Coastal Trail as it is now, and how it will be in the future. Our trail is a sustainable local project: a long-lasting, steady effort with the people of coastal Tohoku. Our little nonprofit organization received this award even though it was only founded three years ago, but this award is for all the people who did so much over these years for the Michinoku Coastal Trail. Thank you so much, for everything.
Michinoku Trail Club will continue to put our all into managing this trail: Representative Director Toyoshi Sasaki, Director Masayoshi Kato, Director Aki Matsui, Secretary-General Kumi Aizawa, MCT General Manager Hiromitsu Seki, Center Deputy General Manager Masami Itabashi, Satellite Manager Miyuki Nishizawa, Trail Management and Goods Contact Kyohei Mori, English support temporary staff member Anna Thomas, and Shigeyoshi Nyu who is surveying the trail right now.
Thank you all so much for your continued support!
https://www.mlit.go.jp/kankocho/topics02_000193.html