More Environment Articles - The Japan Times

Today's print edition

Subscribe for more access

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / OLD NIC'S NOTEBOOK

Dec 5, 2007

Wintertime and the livin' ain't easy

By C.W. Nicol

I came to live in Kurohime in Nagano Prefecture in the autumn of 1980. An old friend lived here, the poet and critic Gan Tanigawa, and he found a house for me. It was a big old country house, a couple of hundred years old, at least, with massive wooden pillars and beams and a thatched roof. The house...

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER

Nov 28, 2007

By Rowan Hooper

* Japanese name: Misago * Scientific name: Pandion haliaetus * Description: A distinctive, magnificent bird, with a wingspan of 180 cm, a body up to 60 cm long, and pure white underparts. The top side of the body is a deep brown, the head is white with a masklike stripe over the eyes that drapes onto...

ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH

Nov 21, 2007

Biodiversity to take your breath away

By Mark Brazil

I promised that I would write more about my recent visit to South America, and as the first snows are now regularly dusting the mountains on view from my window here in Hokkaido — and even coating my balcony — it's hard not to reflect on times spent in warmer climes.

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER

Nov 14, 2007

Rosy bitterling

By Rowan Hooper

* Japanese name: Tairiku baratanago * Scientific name: Rhodeus ocellatus ocellatus * Description: A small freshwater fish in the carp family, native to Taiwan, the rosy bitterling grows to some 6.5cm long. It's a pretty thing, with a flat silver body touched with green behind the head, blue on the sides...

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / OLD NIC'S NOTEBOOK

Nov 7, 2007

Pride towers amid ongoing woes

By C.W. Nicol

In 1669, the Ainu leader Shakushain, who rose up and united the Ainu in rebellion against Japanese invaders, was called on to observe a truce, and invited to a banquet in his honor. The Matsumae clan, who had established a foothold on the island then called Ezo, now Hokkaido, by building a castle in...

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT

Oct 31, 2007

Tokyo's botanical beauty

By Linda Inoki

A FLOWER LOVER'S GUIDE TO TOKYO: 40 Walks for All Seasons, by Sumiko Enbutsu (Kodansha International, ¥2,200)

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH

Oct 24, 2007

'Gore's Nobel Prize is wonderful'

By Stephen Hesse

As soon as the rumors began that former U.S. Vice President Al Gore and the U.N. Intergovern- mental Panel on Climate Change were being considered for a Nobel Peace Prize it was easy to predict at least one thing: Win or not, the commentators, pundits and bloggers were going to have a field day.

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER

Oct 24, 2007

Little red damselfly

By Rowan Hooper

* Japanese name: Beni-itotonbo * Scientific name: Ceriagrion nipponicum * Description: The clue's in the name: This insect is small (just 35 mm long) and red — although the females, which are a slightly duller orange, or even brown, don't sport the vivid vermilion of the males. The four wings are...

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH

Oct 17, 2007

Individual variations and a sense of identity

By Mark Brazil

I have recently returned to Japan from five astonishing weeks in the neotropics. Exploring and observing the riches of Brazil's Atlantic rain forest and Pantanal (the world's biggest wetland area) has left me overwhelmed by their biodiversity.

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER

Oct 10, 2007

Freshwater blue goby

By Rowan Hooper

* Japanese name: Ruri-Yoshinobori * Scientific name: Rhinogobius sp. * Description: Gobies have a slender body with a rather large head, bulbous eyes, fleshy cheeks and a full-lipped mouth, giving them something of a cartoon appearance. Males have shining bright blue spots on their cheeks and body....

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT

Oct 3, 2007

Wild orangutans 'facing extinction within 15 years'

By David McNeill

PANGKALAN BUN, Borneo — Homeless, semiparalyzed and blind in one eye, Montana faces an uncertain future. Even if his human friends find somewhere for him to live, the 15-year-old has been weakened by years in assisted care. The lethal dangers of readjustment to life in his natural habitat include not...

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / OLD NIC'S NOTEBOOK

Oct 3, 2007

'Stoopid ninja' keeps on learning

By C.W. Nicol

T he first time I ever heard cicadas was in 1963, during my very first summer in Japan. I was wandering through a small mixed woodland where some small boys were flitting from tree to tree, playing ninja. I, as a strange young foreigner passing through, became their target for assassination. Being just...

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

Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Visitors walk past Sou Fujimoto's Grand Ring, which has been recognized as the largest wooden structure in the world.

Can a World Expo still matter? Japan is about to find out.

By Tomoko Otake

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

BOARDING & INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL DAY 2025 (Sunday, April 20)

BOARDING & INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL DAY 2025 (Sunday, April 20)

SPECIAL SUPPLEMENTS

SUPPLEMENTS BINDER

international-reports