ABSTRACT
I first visited Takae in August 2010. Located in the small village of Higashi-son in the Kunigami-gun area in the northern tip of Okinawa Prefecture, Takae is more than three hours away by car from Naha, Okinawa’s capital, and is thus truly in the midst of a “jungle.” People call the area yanbaru, a term in the local Okinawa dialect for an ecologically sensitive area of sub-tropical mountain forests. Although nearly inaccessible to the public, Takae is only a ten-minute helicopter ride from Camp Schwab, a US Marine Corps (USMC) airbase. Camp Schwab is adjacent to Henoko, where the Japanese and US governments jointly intend to relocate the current Futenma airbase, one of the most significant and controversial exemplars of the US presence in Okinawa.
