Rampant poaching of rare plants and insects is taking place on Kagoshima Prefecture's Amami-Oshima island, which was registered as a World Natural Heritage site in July.
Certain plants are in danger of extinction on Yakushima island in the same prefecture -- Japan's first World Natural Heritage site -- due to past acts of illegal collection, and virgin forests have been damaged on the natural heritage Shirakami-Sanchi mountain range in Aomori and Akita prefectures, clearly illustrating the difficulty of protecting nature at these sites.
