Shimokawa Town, Hokkaido "Forest Cluster Special Zone" - in the context of around 2002

Shimokawa Town, Hokkaido "Forest Cluster Special Zone" - in the context of around 2002

Around 2002, as Japan was preparing to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, concrete measures were being sought at the regional level to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Among these, the concept of linking local forest resources to global warming countermeasures and industrial promotion at the same time attracted much attention. The town of Shimokawa, located in northern Hokkaido, faced depopulation and a slump in its forestry industry despite its tradition of forestry. The town took advantage of this challenge and envisioned its revitalization as a "forest cluster special zone.

The first pillar of this special zone was to "place forest conservation at the forefront of global warming prevention. While protecting the forests as carbon dioxide sinks, the plan established a sustainable cycle of logging and reforestation, and at the same time, it set a direction to utilize forest resources for industrial purposes. This was an attempt to position forests not merely as natural resources, but as "basic infrastructure that supports the community.

Second is the "creation of industrial clusters. The plan called for outsourcing the management of state-owned forests to municipalities and establishing a mechanism for local communities to take the initiative in forest management, while at the same time developing a chain of diverse industries, including forest experiences, eco-tourism, and processing of forest products. A particularly noteworthy feature of the plan was the relaxation of restrictions on the opening of farmer's inns, which would allow city residents to stay in the area for extended periods of time and experience tourism, thereby balancing forest culture and the local economy.

The special zone was also intended to encourage local residents to start their own businesses, and to break away from the traditional dependence on the forestry industry by providing forest-related education and training, supporting NPO activities, and attracting private investment. The forests were reevaluated as a place to create new jobs as well as to preserve the environment, and the town sought to show the rest of the country what Shimokawa-cho as an "environmentally-oriented town" looks like.

This concept was a pioneering attempt in the early 2000s to unify environmental policy and regional revitalization, and anticipated the principles that would later be used in "environmental model cities" and "regional development" policies.