Ecotourism was developed as a measure of conservation within international conservation organizations such as IUCN - the World Conservation Union. IUCN's World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA) held the Forth World Conference on Protected Areas in Caracas in 1992, where a goal to set aside more than 10% of land on the earth as protected areas was adopted. However, protected areas in developing countries are suffered from shortage of budget, because of accumulated foreign debts. Ecotourism, consequently, comes to attract attention as a self-financial mechanism of protected areas in developing countries. Since the First Conference on Protected Areas of East Asia was held in Beijing in 1993, many efforts have been made to enhance an ecotourism as a conservation measure in protected areas in East Asia.

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Presence of the Japanese pika (Ochotona hyperborea yesoensis) around a lakeside tunnel near Lake Shikaribetsu in the Mt. Daisetsu National Park was assessed using the presence of feces, hay piles, feeding remains, vocalization, and interviews with local people. The study was conducted from September to October in 1997 and from July to September in 1998. Old feces and hay piles, indicating that pikas had lived in the area searched were present, but no fresh signs confirming the present distribution of pikas were found. It is concluded that the pika population in the area disappeared during or after tunnel construction completed in 1994. Tunnel construction seems to seriously damage the habitat of pikas within at least a 200m radius from the tunnel. A tunnel plan for the Shihoro Heights Road is considered incompatible with the conservation of pika.

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Five trials of chasing wild Japanese monkeys (Macaca fuscata) using hunting dogs (Canis familiaris) were conducted for the purpose of protecting agricultural fields in Nikko, Tochigi prefecture. Trials were conducted on 12 days between 1994 and 1997. The 61-83 member troop and dogs were tracked by radio-telemetry. Three dog breeds were used; plott hound, beagle and a hybrid of plott hound and beagle. The troop, which was chased by hunting dogs, fled immediately from the agricultural fields to nearby coniferous plantations, and finally to broadleaved deciduous forests. The daily moving distance of the troop was longer under chasing conditions than before or after the trials. As a result of chasing, monkeys feeding in agricultural fields decreased in number; however, upon ceasing the trials, the troop returned within several days and continued to damage crops. This revealed that short-term chasing may have temporal, but not permanent effects.

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Rainbow (Oncorhynchus mykiss) and brown trouts (Salmo trutta) were introduced to Hokkaido in 1920 and 1978, respectively. Catch records of rainbow and brown trout in Hokkaido were obtained from data reported in a monthly angling magazine and the Annual Reports of the Hokkaido Fish Hatchery. Rainbow trout have been caught in 72 river systems during 1970 to 1996. Brown trout were discovered in 1980, have widely extended their distribution in recent years, and have been caught in 18 river systems in Hokkaido.

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To appreciate a local flora in terms of fragility caused by loosing pollinators in increasingly fragmented habitats, fruit set ratio of flowers was surveyed for 60 plant species between those subjected to excluding pollinators by bagging and those without treatment (control). 60 species include 8 annual and biennial, 36 perennial, and 16 woody plants. The ratio for 60 species under bagging treatment showed a bimodal distribution with the highest mode at the two extreme classes of 0-10% and 90-100% while under control half of the plants surveyed had >90% fruit set ratio. Plant groups with a longer life span had a lower fruit set ratio under both the bagging treatment and control. Under bagging treatment all annual and biennial plants had >90% fruit set ratio though woody and perennial plants exhibited bimodal distribution. Under control, the bimodal distribution demonstrated under bagging treatment shifted its shape to uniform for woody plants and to monomodal for perennial plants with the mode at the 90-100% class of fruit set ratio. Half of the herbaceous plants which mainly grow interior of forests significantly decreased the fruit set ratio by bagging compared with that for control while only 11% of the herbaceous plants which occur exterior of forest did. These results indicate a tendency for woody and perennial plants and for forest-interior-plants to suffer from pollinator limitation due to destroy and increasing isolation of their habitats.

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