Yakushima Hiking Guide 2026: The縄文杉 (Jomon Sugi), the Shiratani Unsuikyo Gorge and Everything You Need to Know Before You Go Yakushima is the sub-tropical island off the southern tip of Kyushu whose ancient cedar forest — the yakusugi, trees that survive only because their timber is so dense with resin that the Edo-period loggers couldn’t be bothered to cut them — contains individuals estimated at 2,170 years old by the most conservative carbon-dating and 7,200 years old by the most generous, whose moss-covered roots and rain-soaked forest atmosphere inspired Hayao Miyazaki’s Princess Mononoke, and whose UNESCO World Heritage inscription in 1993 as one of Japan’s first two natural World Heritage…