Hands that Link Forests and People - Forest Thinning Regeneration Project in Hokuto City (2007)

Hands that Link Forests and People - Forest Thinning Regeneration Project in Hokuto City (2007)

Around 2007, Japan's forestry industry was in a serious decline due to the increase of imported timber. While thinned timber was left unattended after logging, causing forest degradation and landslides, Hokuto City in Yamanashi Prefecture introduced a new system to promote the effective use of thinned timber under the initiative of the local community. The city has established a system to reuse abandoned timber by linking forest owners with woodworkers and other users through a registration system. As a result, wood that had been disposed of or used as fuel was once again utilized as a material for furniture and construction, bringing new life to both the local economy and culture.

This movement was also linked to policy trends such as the reduction of greenhouse gases based on the Kyoto Protocol and the Forestry Agency's "Ki-zukai Campaign" and "Forest and Forestry Restoration Plan. The "tree circulation" linking urban culture and mountain village forests attracted attention as a CO₂ sink measure, and was evaluated as a model for environmental regeneration starting from the local community. Furthermore, it served as a prototype for later schemes utilizing forest environment taxes and forest environment concession taxes, and Hokuto City's experiment can be positioned as a pioneering practice that goes beyond mere resource reuse and aims for the symbiosis of local communities and nature.