Yakushima

Yakushima is a round, mountainous island about 60 km off the southern tip of Kyushu, with peaks approaching 2,000 m and more than 8,000 mm of rain a year. Vegetation changes from subtropical on the coast to cool-temperate near the summits, and about 1,900 plant species and subspecies grow there. Cedars more than 1,000 years old are called yakusugi.

Around 1640 Tomari Joshiku, a monk serving the Satsuma domain, saw how poor the islanders were and proposed logging, and large-scale felling of yakusugi in the interior began. Most of the timber was split into roof shingles called hiraki, which the islanders paid as tax. The 1873 land tax reform made more than 90% of the island state land; islanders went to court from 1899 to 1920 to recover their common forests and lost, after which logging intensified.

The Jomon Sugi was found in 1966, and from 1982 felling of trees over 1,000 years old was banned. By 2001 the standing trees that could be cut outside protected areas were gone, and the felling of living trees ended. In 1993 10,747 ha, about 21% of the island, was inscribed together with Shirakami-Sanchi as Japan's first natural World Heritage sites.