Endless Notes
The boundless, beautiful natural world
The endless human world, its polar opposite
A photographer's notebook chronicling the present state of the environment
In recent years, climate change has increasingly impacted people's lives.
At the same time, human activities are having an impact comparable to natural phenomena like volcanic activity and tsunamis.
Confronting this reality, nature photographer Yosuke Kashiwakura has used his photography to convey the current state of the global environment.
His approach, while drawing people to magnificent nature, overlaps with that of Bob Lee, an environmental activist who worked to protect wildlife and beautiful natural environments.
Together with Kashiwakura, whom we met through our support for wildlife conservation activities in Borneo, we will bring you the diverse forms that nature reveals, through his beautiful photographs.
In recent years, climate change has been
having an even greater impact on people's lives.
At the same time, human activities are having an impact
comparable to natural phenomena such as volcanic activity and tsunamis.
Yosuke Kashiwakura, a nature photographer, has confronted this reality
and conveyed the current state of the global environment through his photographs.
His stance aligns with that of Bob Lee, an environmental activist
who not only drew people to the magnificent outdoors but also
worked to protect wildlife and beautiful natural environments.
Together with Kashiwakura, whom we met through our support for wildlife conservation activities in Borneo,
we will bring you the various faces of nature through his beautiful photographs.
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Borneo Island Episode
Borneo is an island that is home to one of the world's largest tropical rainforests. It is also famous as a wildlife paradise where herds of Borneo elephants and orangutan families live peacefully. However, since 1970, the production of vegetable oil has rapidly expanded, continuously depriving wildlife of their habitats.
Take a closer look at the green expanse covering the land, and you might notice a regular pattern.
This isn't a tropical rainforest, but a landscape densely packed with oil palm trees.
If you look closely at the green covering the earth, you might notice a regular pattern.
This is not a tropical rainforest, but a landscape densely packed with oil palm trees.
The oil extracted from oil palms is called palm oil (also labeled as vegetable oil) and is consumed worldwide. From foods like sweets and instant noodles to daily necessities such as cosmetics and detergents, it is deeply rooted in our daily lives.
The oil extracted from oil palms is
called palm oil (also labeled as vegetable oil), and is
consumed all over the world.
From foods such as sweets and instant noodles,
to daily necessities like cosmetics and detergents,
it is deeply ingrained in our daily lives.
Currently, palm oil from Malaysia and Indonesia, which own Borneo Island, accounts for 85% of the world's supply. People involved in the country's major industries are thriving. Electricity has reached villages, and homes, schools, and clinics have been built, leading to generally prosperous lives. As a result, Borneo's rainforests have been transformed in just 50 to 60 years.
Surrounded by home appliances and able to drive a car. Able to send children to school and take parents to the clinic. In exchange, the world around the village is nothing but oil palms. Elephants, orangutans, everything has disappeared. If we measure the richness of an environment full of biodiversity, Borneo, while being the richest land in the world, may be heading down the path of the poorest.
Elephants migrating from forest to forest sometimes cross oil palm plantations. They are treated as pests that knock down oil palms and are killed with guns or wire snares. Such acts are illegal, but the number of animals secretly killed goes unreported.
The trafficking of orangutan babies, sold as pets, is also a problem deeply linked to palm oil plantations. Orangutans that have lost their forests often frequent human settlements and plantations, making them easier to capture.
As a sole hope, there are several orangutan conservation facilities on Borneo Island. Young orphans are protected there, but their mothers, who should always be with them, are absent. It is highly probable that they were killed by humans.
The facility doesn't just provide protection; it also offers training to help them return to the forest. Young orangutans start by learning to grasp ropes and spend approximately ten years acquiring the knowledge needed to survive in the forest. For orphans, the behavior of older orangutans serves as a good role model.
While it may have been fine when he was clinging to his mother, the young orphan seems to have a fear of heights. He clings to his senior's body and refuses to cross the rope. After training, the orphan is returned to the enclosure and reaches out to the humans, as if saying, "Don't go." It's no wonder, considering orangutans have the longest mother-offspring bond among mammals, only sleeping in a separate tree from their mother around 6 to 8 years old. He remembers his mother's warmth.
Even so, the orphan continues to train daily. It will be difficult to survive even if they return to the forest, but the will to live is in their eyes. Nevertheless, outside the forest, forests are diminishing day by day. The number of orphans protected in facilities is endless. The endlessly expanding human industry never ends.
Photographer
Yosuke Kashiwakura
He vigorously photographs nature-related themes both in Japan and abroad. Focusing on the rehabilitation of orangutans living in areas where civilization and wilderness collide, he published "Back to the Wild: Orangutans Who Lost Their Forests," a photo collection that took 15 years to produce. He held a touring exhibition titled "Orangutans and the Green Tsunami" at Asahiyama Zoo in Hokkaido, Ecorin Village, and Maruyama Zoo. His works have been exhibited at the "MOVING PICTURES Exhibition" organized by the BOS Foundation, the world's largest primate conservation support organization, as well as the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in the US, the Natural History Museum in London, and the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. He has won awards such as the LensCulture Earth Awards, the National Geographic International Photo Contest, and Wildlife Photographer of the Year, and received the Monochrome Photography Awards / Landscape Photographer of the Year. He also serves as a judge for the Monochrome Photography Awards. In 2025, he launched an environmental photography project titled "Endless."
Episode of Borneo island
Episode of Yakushima island
Episode of The Insects
Episode of Borneo island
Episode of Yakushima island
Episode of The Insects
Episode of Rebun island
Episode of Kathmandu, NEPAL