The people of Hokkaido, a vast northern island of farms, forests and wilderness, are trying to save two endangered species. One is the red-crested crane, some 800 of which live in the island's eastern Kushiro Marsh. The other is the wingless crane that, along with other bits of Hokkaido's construction sector, once thrived in a habitat awash in government subsidies. But much of this money has dried up since Junichiro Koizumi, the prime minister, slashed the country's public-works budget. And after depending for decades on public money, Hokkaido has few competitive firms capable of exploiting the export-led recovery that has buoyed other parts of Japan over the past couple of years.
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