I have now finished editing the second novel in the Planet Moss Saga. I am currently waiting for feedback from beta readers before I publish it.
After I finished editing the book, I took this photograph during a vacation on the wonderful Japanese island of Yakushima. This was during a hike up a mountain that is shaded by an immense forest, often referred to as the Moss Forest, because its ground and many of its famous Cedar trees are carpeted in vast blankets of moss. This is also the forest that inspired Ghibli’s studio’s animated film, Princess Mononoke.
My novel, Confluence of Life, features an alien form of moss that I imagine would look very much like this, except that the alien moss is a rich blue rather than the green we are used to, and it isn’t surrounded by terrestrial trees.
Whereas the collapse of Earth’s ecosystem is a point of contention in Confluence of Life and its sequels, the forests of Yakushima are a great example of ecological renewal, supported by ecotourism. In the Japanese Edo period (mid-18th century), Yakushima’s oldest cedar trees, most of them well over a thousand years old, began to be cut down in large numbers and turned into roof tiles. By the time this ended, all that remained were thirty of the trees that were over a thousand years old, referred to as Yakusugi, along with younger cedar trees, which weren’t as desirable for roof tiles.
In 1993, the entire island of Yakushima was registered as a World Natural Heritage site. Since then, no trees have been felled, and although beautifully crafted wooden souvenirs are still made, they are fashioned from wood that was cut down long ago. This is possible because the hard wood of the ancient Yakusugi trees takes a very long time to decay. The second photograph shows one of these ancient trees, now covered in moss. This is one of many trees that were abandoned by the people who cut them down, possibly because they were too twisted to be useful.
Given the age of these trees, it will take a very long time for the forests of Yakushima to fully recover, but with care they will. Tourists are being kept to designated paths to protect the forest, and there is very little pollution there to harm the trees. Indeed, the local people like to tell tourists that the water in the mountain streams is pure enough to drink.