Kayaking eco-tour brings unique cleanup effort to World Heritage Site

Good job.

A few photos would have been nice.....

How is this unique? This same thing was done in my hometown years ago.

Unfortunately, whether they be personally owned or belong to marine tour groups, there is a problem of people discarding old and broken kayaks in the Ishigaki mangroves. In this case, the term eco tourism seems to be mutually exclusive.

Good on them.

A more sustained practice is the answer. The cynic in me believes that the local authorities want to keep the UNESCO status for tourism-business reasons, but don't want to take on the full responsibility of maintaining the site.

How is this unique? This same thing was done in my hometown years ago.

Please post a link.

A group of Japanese environmentalists conducted a weeklong sea kayak eco-tour over the summer to collect garbage that had washed ashore on the Shiretoko Peninsula in Hokkaido,

The Goodness of the Japanese people.

The cynic in me believes that the local authorities want to keep the UNESCO status for tourism-business reasons

It was a local NGO that cleaned up the site.

This same thing was done in my hometown years ago.

Your home town is cut off?

Wouldn't have guessed.

Plastic....what a nightmare product.

Garbage everywhere on the planet.

I used to clean my local beaches here in Japan. ...no one kicked in to help......tourists would sunbake amidst flotsam/jetsam.

Locals here clean up for tourist periods only, rest of the year its plastic time.

I once collected a couple of garbage bags full and was reprimanded for putting this with other waste to be collected.

Collected a car boot full of pet bottles, took to the local garbage place and told,...this waste collected outside our area....will accept this one time only.

I gave up.

Even surf beaches were,nt clean.....again, cleaned a whole bloody beach with zero help from surfers.

I gave up and I give up....this problem is too big for me.

Japanese acceptance and apathy are one and the same.

Most of the garbage washed up onto Japanese beaches has come into the ocean from Chinese rivers.

A fair amount of waste is due to Japanese failing to take their summer tables and chairs back home with them!

I have seen families abandon their furniture on more than one occasion!

Nice initiative.

As it is an heritage site, efforts are made, as well as along the open beaches where tourists go in summer.

Japanese people cleaning up for what gets washed up from China, Korea, and who knows where else.