Winifred Bird - The Japan Times

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Winifred Bird

Freelance environmental journalist Winifred Bird writes for publications including The Japan Times, Dwell, and the Christian Science Monitor. Originally from San Francisco, she lives in rural Nagano Prefecture with her husband, dog and flock of ducks.

For Winifred Bird's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:

Japan Times

COMMUNITY / Our Lives

Mar 10, 2013

Giving the children of Fukushima a place to play is not easy

The Fukushima Aiikuen orphanage sits on 7 hectares of wooded hills — that's about the area of 15 or 16 soccer pitches — on the outskirts of the city of Fukushima. There's an outdoor sports field, a campsite and plenty of lawns for the 91 children living there to play on. In the two years since the start of the ongoing Fukushima nuclear disaster, however, they've gone mostly unused.

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / WEEK 3

Feb 17, 2013

Fukushima radiation threatens to wreak woodland havoc

For Yuji Hoshino, mushrooms were a way of life. The 50-year-old farmer grew up watching his father raise shiitake mushrooms on their land at the foot of the mountains in Sano, southern Tochigi Prefecture.

Japan Times

LIFE / WEEK 3

Jan 19, 2013

Zen and the cross-cultural art of tree-climbing

In the upstairs meeting room of a camping lodge in Komagane, Nagano Prefecture, two women and about 20 men walked slowly and intently in circles one rainy day last November. At the front of the room, a weathered and wiry Englishman intoned the sort of instructions a yoga aficionado would find familiar.

Japan Times

LIFE / WEEK 3

Jul 15, 2012

Farmers try to fence out nasty nature

I once asked a professor of agriculture in the southwestern United States what sort of fence would keep a goat from escaping.

Japan Times

LIFE

Apr 22, 2012

Chernobyl expert takes a look at Tohoku's trees

Somewhere between downtown Utsunomiya in Tochigi Prefecture, and the village of Ogisu an hour's drive to the northeast, Dr. Tatsuhiro Ohkubo pulls over to buy a box of sakura mochi.

Japan Times

LIFE / Travel

Apr 22, 2012

Matsumoto in May means 'crafts '

England gave the world the Windsor chair, but it was the city of Matsumoto in central Nagano Prefecture that reinvented it for Japan.

Japan Times

LIFE / Travel

Dec 25, 2011

Behold! Christ's grave in Shingo, Aomori Prefecture

One line of text from Wikipedia was all it took to lure me to the town of Shingo, in south-central Aomori Prefecture. It read: "The village promotes itself as the home of the Grave of Christ after a local legend."

Japan Times

LIFE / Travel

Oct 23, 2011

Hachinohe's markets serve up feasts in the streets

Two hundred and sixty-two years ago, the feudal domain of Hachinohe was besieged by wild boars. The Wild Boar Famine that resulted, writes environmental historian Brett Walker in his recent book "Toxic Archipelago," was the result of "the perfect ecological storm."

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / WEEK 3

Aug 21, 2011

Three Mile Island's lessons for Japan

In the early hours of March 28, 1979, human errors and mechanical failures combined to cause a cooling system to stop working at the Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. One of the station's two nuclear cores overheated, thrusting the plant into a crisis that would rivet public attention for five excruciating days.

Japan Times

LIFE

Jul 24, 2011

Powering Japan's future

Last year, Japan produced close to one quadrillion watt-hours of electricity — that's 1 followed by 15 zeros. The vast majority of that — which translates into one billion megawatt hours (MWh) — came from coal, natural gas and nuclear power plants operated by 10 utilities that, only a few months ago, seemed unshakably powerful.

ENVIRONMENT

Jul 24, 2011

Distribution gridlock restricts renewables

Dial the clock forward a decade or so, and Japan will be getting a lot more of its electricity from renewable resources and a lot less from nuclear power and fossil fuels — that is, if you go by recent government announcements proclaiming 2011 an energy watershed.

Japan Times

LIFE / Travel

Jun 12, 2011

Enjoy art with alpine views

Back in the 1960s, a New York postal worker named Herbert Vogel and his librarian wife, Dorothy, began buying paintings. Using Herb's modest salary, and living off Dorothy's, they picked out affordable pieces that took their fancy — most of them by artists unknown at the time. By the early '90s, their one-bedroom apartment was packed with thousands of works by Chuck Close, Sol LeWitt and other (by then) titans of Minimalist and Conceptual art.

Japan Times

LIFE / Travel

Apr 17, 2011

Isles of imperial exile where nature is king

Geology buffs take note. "By understanding the Oki Islands, you can understand how the Japanese archipelago was formed."

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT

Mar 13, 2011

Traditional paddies are great ecosystems

Japan's rice-farming areas face two broad trends: field abandonment and farm modernization. Both impact the environment as well as the economy.

ENVIRONMENT

Mar 13, 2011

Japan as a rice culture? Not so quick, says anthropologist

What could be more Japanese than rice? Without the pearly white grain there would be no mochi (rice cakes) at New Year's or sake at shrines, no sushi, no lunchtime onigiri (rice balls), no verdant paddies to mark summer in the countryside.

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT

Mar 13, 2011

Has rice farming passed its expiry date in Japan?

Atsuo Aoki doesn't appear to be an irrational man. At 52, he works in the banking division of the Japan Agricultural Cooperative (JA) in Matsumoto, Nagano Prefecture, an old castle city at the foot of the Japan Alps about three hours by rail north of Tokyo. He lives there with his wife and three children in the house where he grew up, keeps his garage impeccably swept, and answers questions in a calm and measured voice.

Japan Times

LIFE

Oct 24, 2010

COP10: A meet to save life on Earth?

The next time someone asks you what biodiversity is, try this: "It's about your life, life on this planet, and about what we're doing to this planet with our eyes open."

Japan Times

LIFE

Oct 24, 2010

Nagoya event can feel far distant from nature

I have been in Nagoya attending the U.N. biodiversity confrence, COP10, for nearly a week now (two if you count the pre-COP10 meeting on biosafety, MOP 5), and I think it's safe to say I haven't heard mention of an actual animal or plant yet.

Japan Times

LIFE

Oct 24, 2010

Some participants' hopes for COP10

The Japan Times asked delegates and other COP10 participants what their top priorities are at the conference. Many mentioned an Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS) Protocol that is currently the subject of intense negotiations. This would determine how companies and researchers gain access to and distribute the profits from genetic resources and traditional knowledge gathered in other countries (for instance, plant material from the Brazilian rain forest used to develop medicines in Japan).

Japan Times

LIFE

Oct 24, 2010

Key facts and figures

Key data drawn from numerous quoted sources here succinctly suggest the enormous range of problems and issues facing delegates to COP10 — and the world.

From easily navigable train stations to the helpfulness of its municipal staff, Tokyo has earned high praise for its commitment to accessibility for disabled travelers.

[Rebroadcast] Japan is doing better on accessibility than you may think

When trying to trace your lineage in Japan, the "koseki" is the most important form of document you'll encounter.

Climbing the branches of a Japanese family tree

By Alex K.T. Martin

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