More Environment Articles - The Japan Times

November 23, 2024

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Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / GARDENS FOR ALL

Jul 11, 2002

Osaka's peaceful heart

By Gerard Taaffe

In 1972, two years after the Japan International Exposition in Osaka, redevelopment work began on the site. The result, eight years later, was the 260-hectare Expolands Green Oasis, which has now matured into a wonderful parkland with a wide range of attractions and facilities.

ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH

Jul 11, 2002

Diving and biking to eco-awareness

By Stephen Hesse

Excuse me for a moment if I boast, but I am delighted with the progress my backyard is making in its quest for biological diversity. No doubt my neighbors view my garden as unruly and overgrown, but as it's no bigger than a parking space, I let it have its way.

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT

Jul 11, 2002

Knowing the silent sense of self

By Laura Spinney

At birth, an infant has only the sketchiest notion of its own body. Only from moving its arms and legs and sensing the effects on skin, muscle and joints does a baby learn what belongs to itself and what to the external world. By the age of 9, a child's body image is more sophisticated, consisting of...

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER

Jul 5, 2002

By Rowan Hooper

* Japanese name: Kiageha * Scientific name: Papilio machaon * Description: There are several species of swallowtail butterflies in Japan, all of them easily recognizable by their swallowtails -- the tail-like appendages on the edge of the hind wings. Body length is 36-70 mm. Swallowtails have fully...

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH

Jul 4, 2002

Welcome to the world's most successful societies

By Mark Brazil

Ants have an amazing lineage. They have been around for at least 100 million years, since the middle of the Cretaceous Period, and for at least the last 50 million years they have been among the most abundant of all insects. We think we're successful? Our population has recently topped 6 billion, but...

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / OLD NIC'S NOTEBOOK

Jul 4, 2002

A woodland to call not my own

By C.W. Nicol

On May 31 this year, our woodland here in Kurohime was finally designated as a Nagano Prefectural Trust, whose aim is to foster the rehabilitation of abused and neglected woodland, and to return it to greater and balanced biodiversity through continuing research and education.

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / GARDENS FOR ALL

Jun 27, 2002

A temple, park and Heian pond in one

By Gerard Taaffe

Daikakuji Temple in northwest Kyoto started life in the lyrical Heian Period as Saga-in, the Detached Palace of Emperor Saga, who reigned from 809 until he abdicated and went to live there permanently in 823. Then in 876, his daughter Princess Shoshi designated Saga-in to be converted into a Buddhist...

ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH

Jun 27, 2002

Swimming against the tide of marine good sense

By Stephen Hesse

Several years back, the Fisheries Agency of Japan began claiming that whaling is necessary to protect valuable fisheries. The agency argues that if we do not kill whales, they will eat millions of tons of fish that are rightfully destined for human consumption. Since some whale populations are increasing,...

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT

Jun 27, 2002

Japan's farmers start to go green

By Megan Rowling

Hardly a week goes by without the emergence of some new scandal in the Japanese food industry. But whether it's the use of illegal additives or the mislabeling of imported meat as domestic, the outcome is the same: further breakdown in trust between consumers and the farmers and companies involved in...

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER

Jun 21, 2002

By Rowan Hooper

* Japanese name: Monkagero * Scientific name: Ephemera strigata * Description: Mayflies are common, soft-bodied insects with short antennae and mouthparts that are vestigial (not used). They have two long cerci, tail-like structures growing from the end of the abdomen. They are easily recognizable...

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH

Jun 20, 2002

The ants' workaday world is wherever you look

By Mark Brazil

Despite the name, I didn't see any ants in Antarctica, though it's the only place I've been that I haven't seen any. Everywhere else, from Alaska to Australia, from Norway to New Zealand, I have encountered them. Ants are an extraordinarily numerous and successful group.

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER

Jun 14, 2002

Greater shrew-mole

By Rowan Hooper

* Japanese name: Himizu * Scientific name: Urotrichus talpoides * Description: The greater shrew-mole belongs to the mole family but, befitting its name, it has features of both moles and shrews. It has short, thick, dark-brown to black fur that conceals its small eyes and ears, a pointy nose and...

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.

Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Construction takes place on the Takanawa Gateway Convention Center in Tokyo, slated to open in 2025.

A boom for business tourism in Japan?

By Kathryn Wortley

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

The celebrated artist ‘updating’ the kimono

The celebrated artist ‘updating’ the kimono

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