On patrol to protect Okinawa’s World Heritage Yambaru region

In the Yambaru region of northern Okinawa people live and work in proximity to a diverse and fragile natural environment, the habitat for endemic and threatened species like the Okinawa rail.  

The villages of Kunigami, Ogimi and Higashi, the administrative centers of the Yambaru region, account for less than 0.1 percent of the total area of Japan. The village districts, however, are home to around half of Japan’s bird species and around one quarter of its species of frog.   

The image of a local people living in such proximity to a rare and precious natural resource is easy to romanticize, even more so after Yambaru was added to UNESCO’s World Heritage List in 2021, along with Japan’s southern islands of Amami-Oshima, Tokunoshima, and Iriomote.

Reality is not always so romantic, however. The proximity brings with it a threat to Yambaru’s ecosystem which, having developed in relative isolation far from the main islands of Japan, is vulnerable to the impact of invasive species, and the conduct of people.

Thanks to the efforts of determined locals however, more people are coming to understand how precious Yambaru’s environment is, including residents who used to take it for granted.  

Kunigami resident Yasuo Yamakawa, 66, remembers flowers and plants being stolen from the Yambaru forest when he was a child.  Later it was tropical fish from the coastal waters, and then frogs and beetles (including endangered species protected by the cultural properties protection law), again from the forest. 

Angry that nothing was being done about “this theft happening right in front of our eyes,” Yamakawa approached the Environment Ministry about setting up patrols in the forest.  

After securing a budget from the ministry, Yamakawa and other volunteers began carrying out “rindo patrols,” or forest road patrols, in Kunigami. Within six months, a team of four or five established four patrol routes in the Yambaru forest.  

That was 15 years ago. Today, around 30 volunteers carry out regular patrols along routes in all three of the Yambaru village districts. With Yamakawa’s persuasion, the local forestry association began carrying out similar patrols of its own.    

Yamakawa and other volunteers also created the organization Yambaru Links to administer the patrols, eventually establishing it as a company to secure larger budgets from the Environment Ministry to expand their routes.  

I joined Yamakawa and Yambaru Links on one of their patrols in September. Patrols are typically done early in the morning or at night on roads originally built for forestry workers.   

We looked for signs of rare animals and plants, and feral dogs and cats that are a threat to endemic species.  On one of our patrols, we managed to log an endangered Okinawa Ishikawa’s frog. 

What we really wanted to see was a “Yambaru kuina,” or Okinawa rail, the most famous of Yambaru’s residents. The flightless bird is distinctive for its red bill, red eyes, and thick, muscular legs. However, sightings of the rail in the wild are not easy to come by.  

We looked for trees offering leaning trunks and horizontal branches, easier for the rail to climb and avoid poisonous habu snakes. But we were left wanting.  

Photo taken on July 30, 2024 shows an Okinawa rail in Kunigami, a village in Okinawa Prefecture. (Kyodo)  

After being identified as a new species in 1981 the Okinawa rail is now on the Environment Ministry’s red list of species facing “an extremely high risk of extinction in the near future.” Around 1,500 Okinawa rails are estimated to be living in the Yambaru region.  

Despite on-going eradication efforts, the invasive mongoose remains a threat to the rail. Humans driving cars, too. In 2023, 30 rails were killed on the roads here, according to the Yambaru Wildlife Conservation Center.  

Poaching is also a problem in Yambaru, so patrols need to be on the lookout for illegal traps. On this occasion the only traps we found were the distinctive pipe-like devices set to catch mongooses. 

We saw no other people during the patrols. It was just us and the forest, and its cacophony of humming, ticking, and singing wildlife.   

Aside from the traps, there were other signs of human presence – garbage. Usually, plastic bottles by the side of the road.   

The wildlife, the traps, the roadkill, patrollers log and record what they find with GPS data, photos, and written descriptions. Even the garbage is recorded before being collected and taken away.   

After Yambaru attained its World Heritage status, the Environment Ministry asked Yamakawa and Yambaru Links to communicate the significance of the region and its environment as a resource to local people for whom it had been seen as such a normal thing.  

“By having local people participate in the patrols, they’ve been able to rediscover the value of this area,” Yamakawa said.  

Now residents reach out to Yamakawa and Yambaru Links when they see rare animals or invasive creatures, sometimes in their own fields, that might present a threat to the Yambaru. In such cases, Yambaru Links knows the relevant authorities or experts to contact should the situation require.  

Protection alone is not enough. Yamakawa thinks that volunteering efforts to protect the Yambaru need to generate some form of income. He wants to show younger generations how this can be done by “turning protection into an economy.”

“There’s a form of tourism that involves conservation. Showing customers how to protect and preserve,” he said.

Pairing conservation with tourism initiatives needs to be done carefully. In the last year, Yamakawa helped to open night patrols in the village of Higashi as an experience which visitors can pay to join. Participants help to log and record the same threats to the Yambaru, or creatures that might be under threat, as the regular patrols do.   

To protect the area’s integrity, however, specific patrol locations are not disclosed to the participants. Taking photos is also prohibited.   

Word is spreading though, about the wonders of the Yambaru and the need to protect it. And nowhere does word spread better in Okinawa than in a kyodo baiten – the local co-op store.  

Yukio Kinjo, one of the founders of Yambaru Links, runs the kyodo baiten in Takazato, in Ogimi, where he was born and raised.   

Takazato, population around 240, appears one example of the celebrated proximity between people and the wildlife of the Yambaru.  

Takazato in Ogimi, a village in the Yambaru region of Okinawa Prefecture, in Sept. 2024. (Kyodo News Plus)

Among the shelves stocked with daily necessities, local people come to Kinjo’s store to sit and talk about village life over a can of coffee, in typical kyodo baiten fashion. These days they are sharing more information with each other about the wildlife – what they have seen and where. 

“The reason for (Yambaru) gaining World Heritage status was biodiversity and the many rare species. You can usually see them around here,” Kinjo said.

Just a few days before our visit, a visiting family found a “ryujin-omukade,” or Halcyon giant centipede, according to Kinjo. Whether or not that would be seen as a pleasant encounter – the centipede can grow up to around 25cm in length – may depend on the visitor. Nonetheless, the ryujin-omukade was designated as a rare species by the Environment Ministry in January.  

Kinjo shared another encounter, this one easier on the squeamish. One of his neighbors, relaxing at home, was surprised when an Okinawa rail came into the house and positioned itself on the television. It made the news.  Kinjo has the newspaper clipping which he shows to visitors at his store. Now, everyone here gets excited about an encounter with an Okinawa rail.  

This article was submitted by a contributing writer for publication on Kyodo News Plus.