allaboutravelling.comThe Common Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO protected was included in 1993 a forest area of ??10,747 ha, located on Yakushima island belonging to Japan. It is one of the few ancient forests, the ecosystem still untouched by civilization intervention.
Yakushima Island is great. It has an area of ??505 square kilometers and have the census of 1995, a population of 13,698 inhabitants. Little Islands are visited annually by 300,000 tourists come from all over the world, attracted by the fame of unique vegetation found on the island, reports the Big Picture.
Besides the fact that the forest is a unique tourist interest is amplified by picturesque forest landscape, where thick and dark areas alternating with sunny glades, areas dominated by moss or twisted trunks of old trees.
The main tree species is Japanese cedar, the oldest specimens with a length of over 7,000 years, according to local legend. According to research stiintifce, but it seems that age does not exceed 2,300 years cedars.
The fauna is diverse, but the only large animals are monkeys Macaca Japanese family and Sika deer.
Access to the island is by ship with electric drive means to emit no exhaust gases, and with airplanes whose time is very limited, to avoid pollution.
All environmental reasons, more than half of the energy used on the island comes from small hydropower installed in numerous areas in the path of flowing water cascades. Yakushima Island is considered as emissions of greenhouse gases are among the lowest in the world.