Everglades National Park (The United States of America) - The Everglades National Park, with its vast virgin wetlands and mangrove forest, is a veritable treasury of wildlife. The gently flowing waters of the Everglades situated at the southern tip of the Florida Peninsula, is an avian paradise and a home to alligators and crocodiles. Dense mangrove forests thrive where the fresh waters of the wetlands finally meet the seawater of the Gulf of Mexico. These dense forests by the sea display to us the inner workings of nature. Yakushima (Japan) - The island of Yakushima is home to a primeval forest of ancient crytomeria trees that are over 1000 years old, and features a variety of vegetation types ranging from subtropical to alpine. Yakushima is situated 70 kilometers to the south of the southern tip of Kagoshima Prefecture. The island has a diverse range of plant life with subtropical plants such as Chinese Banyan trees and Ficus superba var. japonica trees growing near the coast; laurel forests and coniferous forests featuring ancient cryptomeria trees on the mountainsides; and clusters of Pseudosasa owatarii at elevations over 1500 meters. This fertile island is a microcosm of the various natural environments that exist on the islands of the Japanese Archipelago.