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Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT

Jul 31, 2003

What’s natural about shizen?

By Jack Moyer

As anyone with an iota of awareness and no partisan ax to grind must surely know by now, this planet’s nature is in danger of being mostly destroyed within the next century, with catastrophic consequences for human life.

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER

Jul 31, 2003

Alpine black swallowtail

By Rowan Hooper

* Japanese name: Miyama-Karasuageha * Scientific name: Papilio maackii * Description: Widely held to be one of the most beautiful butterflies in Japan, the Alpine black swallowtail has a wing span of 38-75 mm and is covered in iridescent green or blue scales. Males have a green metallic shimmer to...

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH

Jul 24, 2003

Making a BEE line for ‘green living’ throughout Japan

By Stephen Hesse

School’s out for summer, and just about everyone seems to be on the road heading for the beach, the mountains or the mall. Chances are, though, many of those drivers will spend most of their time caught up in traffic.

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER

Jul 17, 2003

By Rowan Hooper

* Japanese name: Kitsune * Scientific name: Vulpes vulpes japonica * Description: Foxes look somewhat like dogs and belong to the same family. The fur of the red fox is orange-rust colored, apart from the throat, belly and tip of the tail, which are white. The feet and the rims of the ears are black....

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH

Jul 17, 2003

Humble marvels of nature

By Mark Brazil

The mechanics of flight are beyond me, and I especially can’t imagine how bumblebees can become airborne. Images of a jumbo jet taking off without a runway spring to mind.

ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH

Jul 10, 2003

Know what you eat

By Stephen Hesse

Trying to understand the debate over Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) is a bit like trying to pick up mercury. It seems solid enough, but try to grasp it and it slips away. Critics of GMOs might draw another parallel as well. Considering how pervasive GMOs are and yet how little we know about them,...

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT

Jul 10, 2003

One man’s battle against mighty Monsanto

By Amanda Suutari

“Once you put a genetically modified organism into the environment, there’s no bringing it back,” farmer Percy Schmeiser told a 180-member audience last week at NPO Plaza in Osaka. Invited by organic farming co-ops and various civic groups from across the country, the 72-year-old native of Saskatchewan,...

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER

Jul 3, 2003

Large field mouse

By Rowan Hooper

* Japanese name: Aka nezumi * Scientific name: Apodemus speciosus (large field mouse) * Description: These mice are 9-14 cm long, with hazel-brown fur on top, and a white throat and belly. They have large black eyes, a well-developed sense of smell and sensitive whiskers. Females have eight nipples....

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH

Jul 3, 2003

What a week that was

By Mark Brazil

It was a week filled with surprises and excitement.

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / OLD NIC'S NOTEBOOK

Jul 3, 2003

Who says all factories have to be eyesores?

By C.W. Nicol

Earl in 1995, a friend of mine, a journalist I first met back in the 1970s, asked me to have dinner and drinks with him in a cozy, noisy izakaya in Shinjuku. There, he introduced me to a very friendly, well-traveled man called Masayoshi Ushikubo, the executive manager of a company that made electrical...

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH

Jun 26, 2003

Shrimp farms: pawns in ecosystem destruction

By Stephen Hesse

Look just about anywhere in Japan and you’ll find prawns. Fried, boiled, baked, frozen and fresh, they fill acres of shelves in department stores and supermarkets and are staples in sushi and tempura shops -- as well as being found in even the most unlikely bowl of noodles.

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / GARDEN PATHS

Jun 26, 2003

A rare and rocky treat

By Linda Inoki

The most remarkable gardens often combine nature and symbolism: Think of the Alhambra Palace in Granada with its cool water and bowers of jasmine offering a preview of the Islamic paradise. In Europe, symbolic gardens sometimes testified to a monarch’s power -- the most extreme example being at Versailles,...

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

Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

The Terasaka Rice Terraces are seen with Mount Buko in the background.

What Yokoze can teach Japan about rural revival

By Alex K.T. Martin

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

New Logistics Consortium baton to accelerate trucking efficiency

New Logistics Consortium baton to accelerate trucking efficiency

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