In the Meiji era, the Japanese rushed into the Pacific Ocean islands in order to gain the feather of birds such as albatross. This study examined the Japanese exploring to the Pratas Island in the South China Sea. The first exploring to the Pratas Island was conducted by Hanuemon Tamaoki and Shinroku Mizutani in 1901, and they aimed to gain albatross feather. However, there was no albatross in the island, then Tamaoki abandoned his plan immediately. Mizutani tried in vain to find Sula leucogaster . Secondly, Kichiji Nishizawa explored the island in order to gain not only birds’ feather but also guano and mineral phosphate; huge labor force was introduced into the island, and the island was transformed into the business island named ‘Nishizawa Island’. At this point, the purpose of the exploring of the uninhabited island was dramatically changed from gaining birds’ feather into the collection of guano and mineral phosphate. However, in course of time, Nishizawa’s business in the island caused a territorial issue called ‘Nishizawa-island Incident’; the China’s nationalism movement against Japan such as staging a boycott of the Japanese products damaged the Japanese government. The incident was solved by the agreement that the Chinese government purchased Nishizawa’s property in the island.

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In the Brazilian Pantanal, traditionally, extensive cattle grazing has continued because to the area of inundated land changes significantly by seasons, and of its location is remote from large cities. Meanwhile, tourism based on the eco-tours that utilize the wetland's unique fauna and flora was developed recently. Part of the wetland was listed as World Heritage in 2000, and the development of tourism was accelerated along the axes of main roads in the wetland. Estrada Parque in the south Pantanal and Transpantaneira in the north Pantanal are the main axes of development. This study examines the development of tourism in the Brazilian Pantanal by focusing on the management of accommodations such as Fazenda Pousadas (farm inns), hotels and anglers' inns that are located in the south Pantanal. To examine the accommodations, the author pays attention to five stages, i.e., circumstances of farms before the introduction of tourism, seasonal management of land and water, structure of farm facilities, types of ecotourism and their charges, and tourists and their home countries. Considering the regional differences of tourism in the south Pantanal, three types of regions are obtained as follows. (1) "Core region" is Estrada Parque in which various types of accommodations are accumulated. (2) "Peripheral region" is Nhecolândia where several farms introduced tourism after the 1990s. (3) "Outside peripheral region" is Paiaguás where ecotourism began after 2000. As the results of the examination, some characteristics that are in common with the tourist resorts including World Heritages are extracted, i.e., (i) progress in speculative management by the managers from outside of the region, (ii) difficulty in maintaining the quality of guides, and (iii) shifting to mass-tourism and changes in types of tourists. While these characteristics are applied mainly to the core region, the others are considered especially in the peripheral and the outer peripheral regions, i.e., (iv) changes in farm management from stock raising to tourism, (v) acceptance of side-job by cowboys as tour guides, and (vi) enlargement of disparity of development between the core region and the other regions. To make profitable proposals for endogenous and sustainable development of the wetland tourism, it needs to establish well-considered plans that will make the best use of the regional resources.

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[in Japanese]

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[in Japanese]

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