COCOS ISLANDS -- When Yuki Horibe was planning a university break in order to gain some overseas experience, she looked at a world map. She said: "I wanted a small, tropical island. I wanted to learn English. I wanted diving. I found Christmas Island, and thought, 'Every day is Christmas. That should be something special.' They speak English in Australia, and Australia gives visas for working holidays."
Yuki, from Gifu, a student of fashion history at Ochanomizu University, looks out to the world. She did her research on Christmas Island, a remote dot of Australian territory in the Indian Ocean. She learned that the island has the rare distinction of preserving a nearly intact ecosystem. It has a huge population of red crabs, 120 million of them. Living in the inland rain forests where they keep the ground clear of leaf litter, during their seasonal migrations they move en masse down to sea level to breed. Nowhere else on earth has crab grids on roads, helping protect red crabs on their routes. Nowhere else gets so smothered in red as this island when the crabs are on the move.
Yuki read about red crabs, island sea birds that are found only on Christmas Island, endemic land birds, dolphins and turtles. From Japan she tried to find work on Christmas Island. She couldn't.