C. W. Nicol | TEDxTokyo 2013
When he was just 17, C. W. Nicol journeyed from his homeland of Wales to the North Pole and across Canada. A decade later, he was struggling desperately against poachers as an officer in Ethiopia’s Ministry of Wildlife Conservation. After a long life of adventuring and devotion to the martial arts, he settled down in the wilds of Satoyama, Nagano Prefecture. In 1986, he began to preserve and restore the woodlands on a rough patch of land on the Kurohime Plateau now known as the C. W. Nicol Afan Woodland. The author of multiple works in many languages, frequently on things natural, C. W. took Japanese nationality in 1995. His ecotourism work, including establishing the Afan Forest Foundation in 2002, aims to expand public initiatives and awareness, and he has often served as the environmental conscience of Japan’s government. Particularly after the Great East Japan Earthquake, no one has a stronger desire to see people living in harmony with nature.