Economy | ANALYSIS
Households to take hit from tax hike
by Tomoko Otake
The consumption tax increase will hit every household in Japan hard, with many people’s financial future hanging on whether their wages rise enough to offset the hike's impact.
Environment | WILD WATCH Sep 14, 2013
On the trail of the legendary Koryak reindeer herders
by Mark Brazil
The dark herd rushed at the slope like a massive wave crashing ashore. Hitting the base of the steep escarpment they were momentarily lost from my viewpoint; they surged upslope, reemerging into view on the upper terrace as a thundering horde, the vibration of ...
Environment | WILD WATCH Aug 17, 2013
Trekking back in time among Okinawa's fronded wonders
by Mark Brazil
A heavy fog hangs around the forested area of Yambaru in the northern hills of Okinawa. On this rainy-season morning in June, there’s a steady dripping all around, though what I can see of the sky is cloudless. Instead, this “rain” is droplets that ...
Environment | WILD WATCH Jul 20, 2013
Building a case for birds
by Mark Brazil
Many people would consider Stonehenge in southwest England or the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt — which both date from around 4,600 years ago — among the crowning glories of human achievement. In Japan, Kyoto’s 14th-century Rokuon-ji (Temple of the Golden Pavilion) or ...
Environment | WILD WATCH Jun 16, 2013
Cycads: 'living fossils' with a deadly twist
by Mark Brazil
Almost two months after revelers in most of Japan began partying beneath cherry blossoms in mid-March this year, we hardy northerners in Hokkaido were still waiting patiently for warm zephyrs to waft in with a late promise of spring. When I returned home on ...
Environment | WILD WATCH May 19, 2013
Dwarf bamboo's no pushover whatever the season
by Mark Brazil
An unseasonably cold spring wind blasts in from the north shaking all before it. Oak trunks tremble; mast-like young white birches sway alarmingly and ineffectively rattle their branches at it.
Environment | WILD WATCH Apr 21, 2013
Nature art: It's in the 'I' of the beholder
by Mark Brazil
When a thing of beauty is perceived, the observer experiences some kind of a reaction; but what defines “beauty”? Is it art?
Environment | WILD WATCH Mar 17, 2013
Ski sortie takes a shrewd turn for the cuter
by Mark Brazil
It was cold and snowing and my mind was far away: I was already imagining returning to the warmth and color of the indoors after this, my latest winter sortie outdoors. It was only the rhythm of my skiing that was keeping me on ...
Environment | WILD WATCH Feb 17, 2013
Dancing Demoiselles of the desert
by Mark Brazil
In a dry, dusty, desert landscape, the clamoring of cranes seems so surprising. I am used to the great winter assembly of more than 10,000 cranes in Kyushu at Izumi, where they congregate on winter-fallow rice fields; and I regularly frequent the winter gatherings ...
Environment | WILD WATCH Jan 19, 2013
Impossible forests where tides ebb and flow
by Mark Brazil
A ripple flows gently inland across an expanse of dark-gray mud. It washes in, then drains back, dampening the surface; it briefly fills, then empties from, tiny holes made by innumerable small crabs. The ebb is over, and the flow tide has begun. The ...
Environment | WILD WATCH Dec 16, 2012
Beware: Devil birds at work in the woods
by Mark Brazil
The final months of the year seem something of an afterthought following the delightful palette of autumn colors; they offer only fickle moods and fickle weather. On November or December days of crisp, cold sunshine, when distant views beckon and late-flying dragonflies and late-flowering ...
Environment | WILD WATCH Nov 18, 2012
The little 'black bird' is a hit, from Liverpool all the way to Asia
by Mark Brazil
It is 50 years this year since the best-selling band in history, The Beatles, released their first single, “Love Me Do.” They were set to catapult Britain into the Swinging ’60s and launch a global musical phenomenon. It wasn’t so much that many of ...
Environment | WILD WATCH Oct 21, 2012
Singing the praises of greenery
by Mark Brazil
This year’s annual hop between the hemispheres in my capacity as a globetrotting nature-tour guide took me to my namesake country, Brazil, with strange and unusual hopes. Following the almost unprecedented heat of this year’s August in Hokkaido, I wondered if, for once, September’s ...