This article analyzes the emerging contours of mountain tourism in a highly popular destination in the North Japan Alps by reporting the findings of a two-year long study at the Kamikochi Valley. The main aim was to understand the dynamic character of the biophysical landscape and the perceptions of tourism service providers and visitors. The study was conducted using a qualitative design and involved in-depth interviews, observations, and a questionnaire survey for visitors.

Understanding the trajectories and extents of land use/land cover change (LULCC) is important to generate and provide helpful information to policymakers and development practitioners about the magnitude and trends of LULCC. This study presents the contributing factors of LULCC, the extent and implications of these changes for sustainable land use in the Finchaa catchment. Data from Landsat images 1987, 2002, and 2017 were used to develop the land use maps and quantify the changes. A supervised classification with the maximum likelihood classifier was used to classify the images.

In recent years, there has been a gradually growing emphasis on the protection of wilderness in Iceland. This is highlighted in the current preparation of a new national park in the Icelandic central highlands, which will become Europe’s largest national park. However, in order to protect the wilderness, a mutual understanding, both on what it is and where it is, is needed. This paper seeks to evaluate Icelanders’ perception and understanding of wilderness.