Ibaraki River Field Visit, Osaka, May 2019

A picture taken at the end of a field visit to the Ibaraki and Ai Rivers, Osaka Prefecture, Japan during an intensive course with students and professors from both Osaka University and Toronto University. The discussions focused on the infrastructural changes to the river as a response to deadly floods in the 20th century, and the ecological impacts of these changes. These modern ecologies were inhabited by many organisms, its species bearing a particular story. Nutoria were an "invasive species" released into the wild, a though they were originally imported for their use in producing fighter pilot vests in Japan. Fireflies had disappeared from the river following the installation of embankments and the development of the neighbourhoods, but were brought in periodically during the summer, resulting in a small resurgence in their population. These species and many others are each changing the lives of the others and the places they inhabit, making these heavily modified environments into their homes.