This Improbable Welshman Is the Patron Saint of Japan’s Forests

With his bushy beard and deep-set blue eyes and clutching an ax in his massive hands, C.W. Nicol might just be the most intimidating tree-hugger you’ve ever seen. A Santa dressed in a down coat and a blue beanie, the 77-year-old Welshman may also be Japan’s best hope for protecting its forests.

In the mid-1980s he bought up 47,000 square kilometers (18,147 square miles) of decrepit parkland in Nagano prefecture, a three-hour train ride from Tokyo, and founded the Afan Woodland Trust, named after a forest in Wales. Today the preserve is home to 148 types of trees and 137 varieties of wild mushrooms, as well as almost 60 species of wildlife, including owls, red foxes, and black bears, many of which are threatened or endangered. “We brought a dead forest back to life,” Nicol says. The role of conservationist is but another line in his colorful dossier, one that includes best-selling author, whisky mogul, actor and singer, and explorer who’s worked as a game ranger in Ethiopia and lived with the Inuit in the Canadian Arctic, where legend says he introduced Kikkoman soy sauce to the local diet.