AOKIGAHARA FOREST, Japan (NYTIMES) – Long before YouTube star Logan Paul brought renewed notoriety to this primeval forest at the foot of Mount Fuji by posting a video of a body hanging from a tree, local officials fought to reverse Aokigahara’s bleak reputation as one of Japan’s top suicide
AOKIGAHARA FOREST, Japan (NYTIMES) – Long before YouTube star Logan Paul brought renewed notoriety to this primeval forest at the foot of Mount Fuji by posting a video of a body hanging from a tree, local officials fought to reverse Aokigahara’s bleak reputation as one of Japan’s top suicide destinations.
The forest looms large in the national consciousness, emblematic of a persistent suicide problem in Japan, which has one of the highest suicide rates of developed countries despite improvements in recent years.
At Aokigahara, signs at the foot of walking paths promote a suicide hotline. „Life is a precious thing that your parents gave to you,“ the signs read. Another offers a number for help with debt. Locals patrol the forest, talking to people who are alone or show signs of depression or suicidal plans.
Although officials believe such measures have helped to reduce the number of suicides committed in the forest to about 30 a year, down from 100 a decade ago, they worry that the fresh publicity could attract more of the hopeless.
With a canopy of cypresses and pines towering over lumpy, moss-covered lava rocks from Mount Fuji, the forest has an ethereal beauty that evokes Tolkien’s Middle-earth or the Forest of Endor in Star Wars. Well-marked paths wind through the forest’s 3,000ha, but those who step off the trails can easily hide deep within what is known in Japanese as the Sea of Trees.
„I think people who commit suicide must have tremendous suffering,“ said Susumu Maejima, deputy chief of the Fujiyoshida Police Department, whose officers are called when bodies are discovered in the forest. „That’s why we are making efforts to prevent suicide.“
Although he declined to comment directly on Paul’s recent video or its joking and sensationalised manner, he criticised the media attention given to forest suicides in general.
„Regardless of the YouTube incident this time, generally speaking, conduct against our suicide prevention efforts is not good,“ Maejima said.
One day this week, young couples, families and foreign tourists visited caves and strolled the paths of the forest, where sunlight filtering through the trees belied freezing temperatures.
Walking in Aokigahara with friends, a graduate student from Taiwan who gave her name as Weng-Ian, 21, said she was out to enjoy the landscape. She said she had seen reports of Paul’s video, which drew widespread criticism online, and was disappointed.
„It was disrespectful to the dead person’s family,“ she said.
Paul apologised on Monday, calling his posting of the video „misguided.“
Japan has long struggled to combat a high suicide rate. In 2016, according to statistics from the Health Ministry and the national police agency, close to 22,000 people committed suicide, a rate of 17.
