These Japanese people who created a biotope in their garden to shelter wildlife
In Japan, many nature lovers enjoy creating a small living space in their gardens, often with a pond, which encourages the growth of sensitive species. The Nihon Keizai Shimbun newspaper met with them.
Endangered frogs and lizards still live in the Tokyo suburbs. Not confined in a vivarium, but roaming free in a private garden, where a man has created a favorable habitat by digging a pond and growing plants.
Its owner, Ienobu Otabe, 61, has loved aquatic creatures since his childhood, spent near a pond full of frogs. Forty years ago, he and his younger brother created one in their garden, hoping that the amphibians would take up residence there. It paid off.
The pond of their childhood, located about fifteen kilometers as the crow flies west of JR [Japan Railways] Shinjuku Station [Tokyo's economic center], has disappeared with the transformation of this area into a residential neighborhood. Fragile species such as the Japanese red frog [ Rana japonica ] and the Japanese lizard [ Takydromus tachydromoides ] that inhabited it now owe their survival to Ienobu Otabe's garden.
He has been working on his garden since 2022, striving to make it as beautiful as it is pleasant for his residents, creating small shelters where they can hide and sleep, such as terracotta pipes and small piles of wood chips.
In October 2023, the Ministry of E
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