At the southwestern edge of Japan, host of the 2025 World Exposition (Osaka-Kansai Expo) from 13 April to 13 October, lies a string of beautiful subtropical islands. “Okinawa” is a collective term for approximately 700 inhabited and uninhabited islands, large and small, centered on the main island, the Miyako Islands and the Yaeyama Islands. In 2021, the forests covering two areas – northern Okinawa Island and Iriomote Island in the Yaeyama Islands – were registered as a Unesco World Natural Heritage Site recognising their status as one of the world’s biodiversity hotspots. In the surrounding sea, divers can enjoy watching fish playing among some 380 species of coral, and in winter, whales visit to give birth and raise their young.
The forests of the Ryukyu Islands, including Okinawa, are rich in biodiversity due to their ancient geological history. With the rise and fall of sea levels, the Ryukyu Islands have repeatedly been connected to and isolated from the Eurasian continent and mainland Japan. As a result, organisms that migrated to the islands from outside have evolved in unique ways to suit the environment of each island.
For example, the Okinawa Rail, a bird found only in the northern part of Okinawa Island, has thought to have evolved to stop flying and become an expert runner due to the absence of predatory mammals and the scarcity of large mammals on the island. With limited resources in the island’s forests, wild boars, the only large mammals here, have evolved to be smaller than those on the Japanese mainland, while smaller creatures such as mice and insects have become larger. Whether you will encounter these unique creatures idepends on your luck as local nature guides, who know the area inside out, welcome guests from all over the world to forests full of signs of life found nowhere else. On Iriomote Island, you can enjoy a boat and kayak cruise winding through mangroves that developed in the vast brackish waters. If you hike from the boat dock, a magnificent waterfall cascading down the Ryukyu limestone cliffs awaits you. In order to protect a precious natural environment such as this, entry conditions and visitor limits are imposed on five of the most popular areas.
AloJapan.com