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New frontiers in Japanese Forest Policy: Addressing ecosystem disservices in the 21st century

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Abstract

Forests are a potential solution to numerous global environmental issues, and their restoration is widely pursued. Forty percent of Japan’s forests are planted forests. This has caused the common occurrence of forest ecosystem disservices in the country, like—wildlife damage, pollinosis, and driftwood damage. Forest policy processes in Japan are characterized by incrementalism, central mobilization, and hegemony of career civil servants. Responses to forest ecosystem disservices have changed the central mobilization policy pattern. Punctuated equilibrium theory can be applied to several policy processes in Japan, but it provides only limited explanation for policy responses to forest ecosystem disservices. The responses are influenced by national governance and public administration traditions and cultures. It is relevant to expand research on policy responses to forest ecosystem disservices, recognizing that ideal responses may require unusual approaches not within traditional policy making or outside of established policy cultures.

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Adapted from Table 2–2 in Kawase (2017). The periods under the names of prefectures represent the ones from which minutes were collected

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Notes

  1. Japanese cedar has 2-year cycles of rich and poor year in terms of pollen amount. Kajimoto et al. (2014) suggested thinning reduces the amount of pollen in a rich year in certain areas.

  2. Varieties with less pollen indicate the ones producing approximately less or equal to 1% pollen than ordinary varieties. Varieties with no pollen literally indicate the ones producing no pollen.

  3. Total re-planting areas in Tokyo as of 2003 was only 3 ha (Tokyo Metropolitan Government 2016). The figure increased and stayed between 20 and 78 ha from 2005 through 2014. Compared against around 30 000 ha of cedar and cypress forests in Tama area, a main forestry area in Tokyo, it is quite small, but meaningful when one considers the change of the past trend.

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Acknowledgements

This research was partly supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B) 15H02871 and Scientific Research (A) 18H04152.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Environmental Science, University of Shiga Prefecture, 2500 Hassaka, Hikone, Shiga, 522-8533, Japan

    Takuya Takahashi

  2. Center for Southeast Asian Studies (CSEAS), Kyoto University, 46 Shimoadachi-cho, Yoshida, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto, 606-8501, Japan

    Wil de Jong

  3. Research Faculty of Agriculture, Hokkaido University, Kita 8, Nishi 5, Kita-ku, Sapporo, Hokkaido, 060-0808, Japan

    Hiroaki Kakizawa

  4. Graduate School of Agriculture, Kyoto University, Kitashirakawa Oiwake-cho, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto, 606-8502, Japan

    Mari Kawase, Koji Matsushita & Atsushi Takayanagi

  5. Faculty of Agriculture, Kyushu University, 744 Motooka Nishi-ku, Fukuoka, 819-0395, Japan

    Noriko Sato

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  1. Takuya Takahashi
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  2. Wil de Jong
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Contributions

TT designed and organized the study. WJ contributed to Sections 1, 2 and 4 and to a minor degree to Sect. 3. HK contributed to theoretical formulation of the study. AT is the main contributor to the case study of human-wildlife conflicts. MK and KM are the main contributors to the case study of pollen allergy. NS is the main contributor to the case study of driftwood.

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Correspondence to Takuya Takahashi.

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Takahashi, T., de Jong, W., Kakizawa, H. et al. New frontiers in Japanese Forest Policy: Addressing ecosystem disservices in the 21st century. Ambio 50, 2272–2285 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-021-01566-2

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