2 anglers referred to prosecutors over damage to rare island plants

Good.

Hahajima is beautiful.

There is no real excuse here, the guys had to know there is a lot of protected things in the island, so just hacking away without any worry would have consequences. Probably more an act of stupidity than malice, but the damage is done so they will have to pay the penalty.

Chichi and Hahajima are amazing.

These guys, probably thought they were just doing some backyard trailblazing. As others have mentioned, perhaps more public awareness effort, such as signage could have prevented this incident. Then others would complain about the “signs ruining the pristine nature.” Because…. This is JT….

Always love Kyodo news writing, often prompting us to open the dictionary for obscure hardware names. Today’s word comes from another near-Shakespearean ‘comedy of errors’:

Alas, our fools confessed to the ‘froes & awls’ toward their outrageous fortune’.” -

froe /frəʊ/ noun: a cleaving tool with a handle at right angles to the blade.

CrickyToday  07:41 am JST

Sounds more like unknowingly damage by uninformed fishermen rather than a purposeful assault on vegetation. More signage? I wouldn’t know an endangered, protected plant from a Pansy.

Most people who move to an island a few years ago and fish there all the time would be aware that it's a National Park, where nationwide, you can not take, remove or damage the fauna. Regardless of whether the species is endangered or not.

Crucit and others - no, I can't tell a Myrtle tree from cannabis indica myself, but I'm smart enough not to go in a national park and start chopping plants at random. There's a difference.

More signage

Jesus wept. You want MORE signage blotting the Japanese landscape?!

Sounds more like unknowingly damage by uninformed fishermen rather than a purposeful assault on vegetation. More signage? I wouldn’t know an endangered, protected plant from a Pansy.

That's going to be a long 24 hour boat ride to Tokyo City to show up for their trial.

Just quoting from the article. It’s up to the judge to choose. (I am sure they would prefer the fine.)

Quote: “The men face up to six months in prison or fines of up to 500,000 yen if convicted, according to the ministry.”

The end result those are some expensive fish well throw in the cost of the trees.

If you've been hiking in Japan you probably know that trails often go straight up the mountainside with little or no traversing. Sometimes trails here can be several meters wide! These guys were building a short cut, so I can imagine there was no plan to have the trail carefully avoid trees, which they could have done.

Too much of this stuff goes on. Hope they get the prison sentence, as a warning to others. A fine is too easy.

Don’t overdo such heavily and leave them alone. Of course saving the nature and endangered environment is important, but attacking or treating own kind human beings by preferring any plants on a very far away isolated island is really quite idiotic. Reminds me of all such extremely well treated pets , race horses etc, while among the own citizens still are quite some starving, homeless or dependent on welfare. You are just all very very sick in your heads and don’t even realize that at all. Someone like me has to tell you that on a daily basis!

nandakandamanda..

Hope they get the prison sentence, as a warning to others.

If you want to send a warning, why not execution? Luckily for them, that's not how justice works. They will get a couple of hundred yen in fines and hopefully will have learnt their lesson. They were not named so as to protect them from local anger, however, in small communities like this I'm sure everyone knows exactly who they are.

Ok it was bad, but can anyone on this site tell me if they can tell a protected tree from a normal tree or plant? Is this botany information taught at school? As they are fishermen I’m guessing they know what fish is OK what fish is not. But a plant/tree doubt it. It was a small path, come on an unknowingly mistake. But it has now informed others so it’s a public service. Who on this site knows what every plant is let alone it’s designation? A warning and a Paper showing these plants would do.

The two men moved to Hahajima, a part of Ogasawara village in the Tokyo administrative region and a popular site for lure fishers, a few years ago, often going fishing together, the police said.

What exactly was a few years ago in this run on sentence???

CrickyToday  07:41 am JST

Sounds more like unknowingly damage by uninformed fishermen rather than a purposeful assault on vegetation. 

"The pair were quoted by the police as saying they used saws and froes": nothing unknowing about that.

That's going to be a long 24 hour boat ride to Tokyo City to show up for their trial.

Normally the 24 hours from Tokyo to Ogasawara is a long trip.

The 24 hour return trip from Ogasawara to Tokyo goes all too quick.

Add on another couple of hours for these bozos for the boat trip from Hahajima to Chichijima.

The whole of Ogasawara is very environment-aware. There is no way these two didn't know what they were doing.