We knew this because we were on one of Japan’s forty-eight official “Forest Therapy” trails designated for shinrin yoku by Japan’s Forestry Agency. In an effort to benefit the Japanese and find nonextractive ways to use forests, which cover 68 percent of the country’s landmass, the agency has funded about $4 million in forest-bathing research since 2003. It intends to designate one hundred Forest Therapy sites within ten years. Visitors here are routinely hauled off to a cabin to stick their arms in blood pressure machines, part of an effort to provide ever more data for the project. In
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