Quote Originally Posted by craftsman View Post
I don't doubt that the Ardennes are packed with tourists. What I don't understand is why you suggest that places like the Fuji-Hakone-Izu National Park are not equally packed (proportionately or not).
It makes a huge differences whether it is proportional or not. You cannot compare one of Japan's most famous national park (because of Mount Fuji) in the outskirt of the Greater Tokyo (35 million inhabitants), which also happens to be one of Japan's main touristic destination outside cities for foreign tourists, with the more sparsely populated and less famous Ardennes region of Belgium. It is only natural that a national park sitting just outside the biggest metropolis in the world is packed on weekends. But what is the percentage of the Japanese population that actually goes out hiking on weekends ? Imagine, if it is only 1%, it means that 1.27 million local tourists are on the roads at the same time. 1% of Tokyoites alone means 350,000 people. Brussels is by far the largest city within 2h by car of the Ardennes and its population is 1 million with the suburbs (130,000 for the centre). The 2nd biggest city has barely 250,000 inhabitants. In such circumstances it is obvious that proportions do matter.

If you want to compare Japan's natural attractions and the number of "nature tourists", compare it to a region with the same population, like Belgium (10 million inhabitants) + France (60m) + Italy (60m).
Why are you so sure that going hiking frequently is more prevalent in Europe? Or even in Belgium?
I have a pretty good intuition about things like that. Then don't forget that I did go around Japan and learn about every touristic attraction and national park in detail to write this website's Japan Sightseeing Guide. I am also writing travel guides about European countries, and I love statistics (e.g. about tourism).
And I still don't quite get what made you think that Japanese don't like nature in the first place?
Easy, the destruction of it. It's like for history; the Japanese don't like or don't care about history, which is why they have so little knowledge about history, and had no scruples destroying their own historic heritage after WWII (best example : Kyoto). I didn't say that the Japanese do not like nature, but that they certainly seem to care less about it and its protection than we do in Europe. Again, why is there no Green Party in Japan, when you see that it was the 2nd or 3rd most popular party at the last municipal elections in Belgium last month ? Why does Greenpeace of WWF have a lower percentage of members in Japan than in many Western countries ? Why haven't the Japanese (with the 2nd most populous developed country on Earth) started major organisations for the protection of the environment with a worldwide network ? Why don't the Japanese protest more about the government pouring concrete over the coastline and mountains, or cutting down forest to plant sugi (Japanese cedar) that gives allergies to half of the population ? Why is Japan the only major nation to support whaling ? Why do the Japanese use billions of wooden chopsticks a year when they could use plastic ones instead ? Why aren't there more zoos or botanic gardens in Japan ? Why does Japan, with a land area bigger than any EU country but France and Spain, only have [url=http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/env_are_und_pro-environment-areas-under-protection]96 protected areas under IUCN management, when Germany has 7,315 and Switzerland has 2,177 of them ? Why is it that Japanese language itself does not differentiate as much between animals as English or other European languages (e.g. turtle vs tortoise, mouse vs rat vs shrew vs vole, whale vs rorqual vs orc, or using the kanji for fish [魚] in the kanji for whale [鯨]) ? I have many many other examples in my head, but I don't have the time or energy to write them all now. Alex Kerr has plenty more of well-documented examples in "Dogs & Demons" (you really should read it).

No, you're right I didn't explore Belgium properly and just went from city to city. And I didn't know about the Wallonian countryside nor about the beech forests. But this too is exactly my point. It is very difficult to really get to know a total country from the city, especially when based in a capital city like Tokyo. [
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However, no disrespect to you, but I suspect your knowledge would fall short outside of the Tokyo area.
Except if you are writing a guide of Japan and travel around the country for that purpose... I don't know where you have been in Japan, but I certainly have seen more of that country than most foreigners in Japan and most Japanese alike.

Anyway, I never said that Japan was not beautiful for its nature, my criticism is about Japanese people who claim that they love nature more than others because of Shintoism, their long passion for cherry blossoms, etc. But when we do compare with other developed countries, their claim sounds nonsensical, because of what I have explained above.
This was ten years ago, but I did walk every step of the way from the northern most tip of Hokkaido to the southern most tip of Kuyshu and I saw a lot of rivers - some of them actually without concrete.
How do you know ? Have you been all the way from the spring to the sea ? Kerr's claim is not that all rivers have concrete banks on all their length, but at least at one point or another (even a few hundred metres). At the time he wrote the book, there was only one river in Japan that didn't have concrete anywhere from the beginning to the end (in Shikoku, if I remember well).