A young entrepreneur is striving to create a network of consumers and farmers promoting pesticide-free agricultural products. Kazuma Nishitsuji, 33, was born into a salary worker's family in Fukui Prefecture and had little to do with agriculture as a young boy. But he became interested ...

A Buddhist temple in Nemuro, Hokkaido, is seeking to redefine its role in the community amid a rapid decline in followers. Nemuro Betsuin Temple of the Shin Buddhism Otani sect began a series of meetings with volunteers last June under the moderation of Ryo Yamazaki, ...

Young consultant Miai Kobayashi is striving to breathe new life into struggling communities. The 29-year-old quit a job pushing paper in an elite stream of the civil service and joined a think tank, where she took on the task of rejuvenating areas saddled with aging ...

Twenty-something Satoshi Okuno thought he had finally found the answer to his question — what can he do for society — when he saw children studying in a corner of a gymnasium being used as a shelter following the March 2011 disaster in Tohoku. "I ...

Kazumi Fujikawa is scouring a nature-rich mountain range in Myanmar. Her mission, to find, identify and classify its flora, is central to the nation's future economy and environment. The 45-year-old Kochi woman's plant taxonomy work in Natma Taung National Park is part of the process ...

The city of Kitakyushu is drawing attention nationwide for an environmental protection campaign it began in the 1990s. "I may be the only mayor who became famous by collecting waste and creating an industry," says former Mayor Koichi Sueyoshi, 80. He was speaking at a plant ...

A group of farmers in Toyooka, Hyogo Prefecture, that practices environment-friendly rice cultivation techniques views the arrival of storks as a sign they are growing a good product. The storks, once extinct in Japan, are drawn to chemical-free rice paddies because they can find such ...

Citizens' movements are underway to restore scenery around Tokyo's Nihonbashi Bridge that was lost when an expressway was built over it 50 years ago in preparation for the Tokyo Olympics. The beautiful Renaissance-style stone bridge with statues of lion and "kirin" mystical creatures came second ...

Shoko Tsuru happily watched a multitude of tiny bubbles appearing on the surface of mud flats at the mouth of the Kuma River. The bubbles show that the mud flats are "living" with various creatures. "There used to be only mud here, but now sand is ...

As editor-in-chief of the Rito Keizai Shimbun, an online newspaper dedicated to covering the cultures and industries of Japan's hundreds of small islands, Atsuko Isamoto will sometimes spend as much as half a month on one. Isamoto, 30, founded the site at ritokei.com in October ...