It didn't matter much to the Tokyo Metropolitan Government that residents of Ome City in western Tokyo opposed the destruction of a large area of forest in the nearby town of Hinode to create a landfill site.
Only the appearance of consideration was given to concerns, in a series of perfunctory public forums. From back in the early 1990s, when the project was first announced, even as the protests were listened to and noted, it became increasingly apparent to the concerned citizens that the bulldozers were waiting, that it was only a matter of time before the green space became a garbage dump.
Only when sculptor Isamu Wakabayashi and poet Gozo Yoshimasu took up the cause in 1996 were the authorities faced with an unforeseen problem -- destroying the forest now also involved destroying a work of art.