There's a film you should see before you go to Yakushima, an island off the southern coast of Kagoshima Prefecture in Kyushu. It's more informative than the average guidebook or, for that matter, the island's World Heritage-listing citation from 1993, which misleadingly talks about "the sacred values of (its) ancient forests of Yakusugi (cryptomeria)."
The fact is that little on Yakushima was ever considered sacred, and none of it is perfectly ancient. Everything was touched, in some way, by logging, which was carried out industriously throughout the Edo Period (1603-1867) — when locals paid taxes to their feudal lord in Kagoshima in the form of wood roof shingles — until the last chainsaw fell silent in the 1980s.
That's not to say Yakushima does not possess a grand and beautiful wilderness. With its mountains lapped by warm currents from the south and soaring to almost 2,000 meters, the island boasts a truly extraordinary environment. Where else can you be surrounded by hibiscus flowers while regarding a backdrop of snow-capped mountains?