Ah, but then you get places like Oze or Mt. Fuji or Kamikochi which in theory should all be remote, but which are jammed to the gills in huge, unending hiking parties. The Japanese surely do love their mountains, but like so many things in Japan, there is no coordination among all the groups to protect the land that they love so much.

It's all very nice to go visit those places to see their beauty, but when you remain oblivious to the terrible erosion, the disappearance of wildlife, the destruction of the diversity of the forests, or even such simple things as the visual integrity of the landscape, then all you do is contribute to the land's destruction. There are very, very few wild land management organizations or trail maintenance volunteers in Japan. Few of the hikers in Japan have anything to do with taking care of the places they use so much. Most have almost no knowledge of ecology or even what a healthy forest looks like (there are very few natural forests in Japan).

At the rate hikers are using the trails right now so many mountain environments are going to erode away that soon none of them will be usable or recoverable in the next 20 years. There should be a permit system, like in New Zealand and the U.S., but since people don't coordinate on a national scale here, by the time anyone does anything it will be too late. The only places I have seen where the use of the trails is restricted are in Yamagata and in Shiretoko in Hokkaido. Tanzawa is so badly eroded now that I refuse to visit it any more except the almost empty, very wild, and difficult to traverse western section.

I think the Japanese are not thinking wisely about their land. And the lack of citizen's voices raised against government policies only contributes to the problem. Hikers, if only for the upkeep of the quality of their experiences, should be much more involved in the dirty work of taking care of the mountains. And that includes the number of people invading a place. Fair access has its place, but so does the health of the mountains and their natural communities. Then again, anything outside the home in Japan has the same status as Disneyland; they are all sources of entertainment, not legitimate communites in their own right.

I agree with all you're saying here Butuki. What do you do, or suggest I do, to tackle this problem? (I'm reluctant to think about it, to be honest, because I suspect any Japanese organization I approached would give the old "This is Japan" line.)