preserving trees by exporting deforestation to the third world

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click for map!

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i remember reading in 'collapse' by jared diamond (a great read of a book that correlated good environmental management with success of societies) that japan was 75% forest and i thought 'what?!?'
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how could that be in a country that is so densely populated? and though there were great expanses of parkland in tokyo itself, most of the time one couldn't see the forest or the trees.
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but then as soon as you leave tokyo - there they are: the forests. huge, lush, thick, dense, beautiful, magical forests, carpeting those volcanic hills from horizon to horizon, and they keep you gagging for more. perhaps my most vivid memories of japan are of the train journeys up and down the valleys of central honshu, surrounded by walls of green.

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there is a walking track between the old towns of tsumago and magome, and it made for a fairy-tale like hike, all the more so as i was being pursued by a wolf the whole way! woof!

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the town of tsumago was like a museum and we both had a visceral reaction to it - yuk. the town of magome seemed much more lived in - vibrant and fun, so spend more time there if you end up going!

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the trek between the two was even better. highlights included being caught in tropical storms, invited in to an old man's house who gave us some traditional tea around a fireplace and charged us the knowledge of where we came from (which he then google-earthed) for the pleasure, and of course the forests surrounding the track. the fact that it was the first long hike i had done in over a year made for big smiles and a private celebration :)

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