More Environment Articles - The Japan Times

October 16, 2025

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Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH

May 15, 2003

Big-mouth bulbuls time it just right

By Mark Brazil

Second of two parts Imagine, if you can, an opinion poll of Japanese forest plants. Question: which bird is most important to you? The brown-eared bulbul, or hiyodori, would have to take a bow.

ENVIRONMENT

May 8, 2003

Emerging specialty puts focus on the 'green' way cities could be

By Amanda Suutari

Cities appeared relatively late in human history, and have gradually evolved over five millennia to support complex economic, political, religious, academic and military organizations and hierarchies. However, their concentration of wealth, talent and creativity that breeds cultural and scientific innovation...

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH

May 8, 2003

Shoppers' power coming to the aid of sustainable development

By Stephen Hesse

Few environmentalists or economists doubt that the G-7 must take an active role in promoting environmental protection and economic prosperity in the developing world. To date, however, though the G-7 nations -- the economic powers of the developed North -- have dispensed substantial aid to the developing...

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER

May 8, 2003

Japanese weasel

By Rowan Hooper

* Japanese name: Nihon itachi * Scientific name: Mustela itatsi * Description: Japanese weasels are fairly small mammals in the mustelid family (a large family of animals that includes otters, badgers, stoats, polecats, martens and skunks). Males are 29-37 cm long, females 20-26 cm. The fur is an orange-brown...

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH

May 1, 2003

Feathered friends of the forest

By Mark Brazil

In a passive way, plants have got birds sussed. They use them, abuse them (ever seen a thrush drunk on fermenting apples?) and mess with their digestive systems. Birds are willing pawns, though; brightly colored flowers and gaudy berries send a simple signal to the bird brain that shouts -- energy! ...

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / OLD NIC'S NOTEBOOK

May 1, 2003

Hanami with a shot of history

By C.W. Nicol

Vancouver, Canada, is a beautiful city. Not only for the magnificent mountains, for salmon spawning rivers, and a largely natural coast, but for the city's many trees. I am told that Vancouver has 124,000 street trees, 30,000 of which flower. The cherry trees especially are glorious.

ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH

Apr 24, 2003

By Stephen Hesse

Dear readers, as you rarely get the last word, this week's column aims to put that right. Two weeks ago, I wrote about the dangers of our society's addiction to oil, and noted that much of the world still believes the primary purpose of the U.S. invasion of Iraq was to dominate its oil supplies and establish...

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER

Apr 24, 2003

Bottlenose dolphin

By Rowan Hooper

* Japanese name: Bandou iruka * Scientific name: Tursiops truncatus * Description: Dolphins are marine mammals, toothed whales, with a broad dorsal fin and a long snout with a characteristic "smile." They grow to between 1.9 and 4 meters long, and weigh 90-650 kg, living for up to 50 years. The dorsal...

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT

Apr 24, 2003

Shooting from the soul

By Kana Ishiguro

Mark Deeble and Victoria Stone met at a diving class when they were students. Then, after graduation, they worked on an environmental-impact assessment project in the beautiful Fal estuary in Cornwall, southwest England, where a new port was being planned. It was the love of the sea and nature they developed...

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / GARDEN PATHS

Apr 24, 2003

Yokohama's green bower

By Linda Inoki

In spring it is delightful to see, as the poet William Wordsworth described it, "the budding twigs put out their fan to catch the breezy air."

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH

Apr 17, 2003

A natural sense of belonging

By Mark Brazil

I pass through the Heidelberg area of Baden-Buerttemberg in southwest Germany several times a year, and though I am transient there, I feel that I have roots -- roots that come from a natural connectedness with the earth. The several thousand hectares of land sandwiched between the gently rising hills...

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT

Apr 10, 2003

Close encounters with 'the world's rarest gull'

By Zhang Zhi-Yen

CHENGDU, China -- Li Shang-yin, a writer of the Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127), is said to have kept five species of birds in his garden, including a graceful gull whose head and bill were black, and which had a distinctive semicircle of white behind its eye.

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.

Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Rock group The Yellow Monkey played K-Arena Yokohama in June as part of a nationwide tour. Concerts are increasingly popular in the age of social media as users value in-person experiences.

Inside Japan’s arena boom: Sports, sound and city-building

By Patrick St. Michel

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Tokyo Gas lights the way to carbon neutrality

Tokyo Gas lights the way to carbon neutrality

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