Amami Mangrove Forest

"""Mangrove"" is a general term for the wild plants that inhabit marshlands and tidelands in tropical and subtropical regions. 94% of Amami City's Sumiyo-cho on southern Amami Oshima Island is covered by mountainous forests. The former town also boasts a magnificent forest of Kandelia obovata and Bruguiera gymnorhiza mangroves (special protection area of Amamigunto National Park) that extends across the estuary of Sumiyo Bay, which faces the Pacific Ocean. The forest, which extends over more than 71 hectares of the estuary shared by the Yakugachi River and the Sumiyo River. Two companies offer canoeing tours of the mangrove forest. Tour participants can enjoy the extraordinary experience of feeling like adventurers as they pilot canoes through waterways surrounded by mangroves."