Of the 70,000 trees that once lined the shore of Rikuzentakata, Japan, only one remained after the 2011 tsunami.Unfortunately, although the nearly 90-foot-tall, 200-year-old tree lived through the floods, it couldn’t survive the resulting saline content in its earth, and 18 months later it died. However, a sculpture erected in 2013 returned the tree permanently to the shore, with its trunk coated and formed over a metal mold and its leaves and branches synthetically remade.