My first close contact with the beasts came after I went to Ethiopia in 1967 to take on the job of establishing a new national park in the cliff-rimmed northern mountains. After a frustrating time in the capital, Addis Ababa, trying to finalize preparations ...

As I try to write this, I’m aboard the cruise ship Asuka, sitting in my spacious starboard cabin on the ninth deck. Through the big square window to my right I can see a calm sea, bluer than any words of mine could describe. ...

I was just 8 years old, going to get the milk from the front porch. I happened to look out of the window and saw something that excited me, so I called my mother, pointed — and yelled: “Look, Mum! Tits!” Whack! Not even ...

A Niigata sake brewery that would prefer to remain anonymous in this context, asked me to sit on a committee for an environmental trust they had just set up. They do brew the most excellent sake, so I happily agreed. They were making some ...

In the contemporary Western world, Christmas starts with Christmas Eve on Dec. 24. and ends with Boxing Day on Dec. 26. In times now long past, though — and on calendars now long since consigned to history — the date of Christmas and celebrations ...

Me and Mr. Matsuki, we’re developers. There — I’ve said it. We actually alter habitat. We haven’t got around to making golf courses yet, but about 10 years ago, when I bought another section of land to add to what is now the Nagano ...

Twenty years ago, in arguments with officials of the Forestry Agency, which was clear-cutting great swaths of old mixed forest and selling off much of the timber to be turned into wood chips, I tried to stress the individual value of various trees. In ...

I don’t drink sake any more. It’s just about the only alcoholic drink that gives me hangovers. Horrible ones. However, shochu I love, and where better to drink it than at a yatai in Fukuoka? Yatai are brightly lit, friendly roadside stalls that open ...

Here we go again. Ten years on from the great environmental meetings and agreements made at the first Earth Summit in Rio, and the second Earth Summit is about to start in Johannesburg. Here we go again. Ten years on from the great environmental ...

Summertime, and the living is easy . . . for me, anyway. I sit in my study here in Kurohime with the window open, shaded by the lush green leaves of oak and maple, cherry and birch, hearing only the cool rush of the ...

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. ...