The power of wood

The kanji characters for tree 木 are made up of ten 十 and eight 八 and so 10/8, i.e. October 8th, was chosen for "Tree Day". It was created by the 日本木材青壮年団体連合会 Nihon Mokuzai Seisou Nendan Tairengoukai, or MSR for short. I couldn't find an official translation of the organizations name, but it translates to something like the Japan Federation of Young and Middle-Aged Wood Organizations.

MSR try to promoting interaction between people involved in the wood industry across the country, as well as with their local community. If you work in a school or are raising kids in Japan, you may have heard of their National Children's and Student Woodworking Competition which is held every year. They accept summer homework woodwork and with the sponsorship and cooperation of the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, the Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, the Forestry Agency, NHK, Sompo Japan, among others, they award prizes to the winning entries.

They registered the annual anniversary to encourage people to learn about trees around them and to make full use of wood. They use the slogan "Power of Wood", with the by-line "The power of wood will change the world". I don't know if wood use will change the world, but wood always has been and probably always be an important commodity.