Much of the private forests in Japan are in poor condition but harvesting and reforestation are beginning to attract attention. A start-up company in Tanabe, Wakayama Prefecture has begun offering forest management services to private forest owners and is promoting reforestation of unused land. Source: Tropical Timber Market Report
The company claims reforestation is attractive to young people from urban areas as they can work in a natural environment. The company adopted a flexible work style allowing employees to decide their own shifts and have second jobs.
The company has said the domestic timber industry has long been in a slump because of low priced timber imports and an increasing area of forests has been left untended or abandoned after logging.
According to the Forestry Agency only around 30-40% of land logged each year is replanted. In the five years through fiscal 2018 the cumulative total of unplanted land was around 2,560 square kilometres. In 2016, the government designated forestry as a “growth industry” and will introduce a tax of yen 1,000 per taxpayer from fiscal 2024 for subsidies. The government is already expanding subsidies to forest owners to encourage them to grow trees. A forest management law of April 2019 allowed municipalities to entrust forest management to private companies on behalf of owners.
