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Japan's Largest Certified Forest Provides Recreational, Spiritual and Commercial BenefitsKnown best for the world's largest city, Tokyo, its high speed bullet train, and ancient Shinto and Buddhist shrines, few people realize that Japan is one of the most forested countries in the world, with 67 percent of its land area covered by forests. Yamanashi Prefecture is Japan's forest jewel, and now it is the first to be certified by the Rainforest Alliance's SmartWood program as well managed. Yamanashi is the largest certified forest in Japan, with 353,360 acres (143,000 hectares) of the approximately 390,426 total acres (158,000 hectares) in the prefecture, assessed for certification. Nestled between Mount Fuji and the southern Japanese Alps, and containing four national parks, Yamanashi Prefecture is visited by millions of Japanese and foreign tourists annually. With a population of 890,000, Yamanashi is near the center of Honshu, the main island of Japan, and less than two hours by train from Tokyo. Forest cover within Yamanashi prefecture is 78 percent of the prefecture's total land area, while the prefectural forest is the second largest in Japan.
In 1911, Emperor Meiji granted the Imperial forests within the Yamanashi Prefecture to the Yamanashi Prefectural Government. The Yamanashi Government has continuously managed the forests since that time. From the beginning of the imperial grant of 1911, to the end of WWII, the forests were managed mainly by selective cutting. Although the forests were exploited early in the twentieth century to rebuild after devastating floods, harvesting was generally light, with most of the resources providing for local fuel and building uses. Major planting efforts began in the 1950s, reaching their peak in the 1960s when the government lowered the wood import barriers, and the social needs for forest conservation and spiritual renewal became increasingly important. From 1975 forward, the annual harvest dropped steadily as the demand for other social, recreational, and environmental services of the forest rose in the Prefecture. In response to this, the forest was divided among parks, public benefit forests and commercial forests as a way of satisfying all of the public needs.
In 1995, the Integrated Prefectural Forest Utilization Plan was developed to maximize the value of the environmental, cultural and economic resources of the forest. Today, the Yamanashi Prefecture continues to manage the forest to meet the diverse needs of the public and the forest ecosystem. The plantations, containing primarily native Japanese species of Karamatsu (larch -Larix kaempferi), Hinoki (cypress - Chamaecyparis obtusa), Akamatsu (red pine - Pinus densiflora), and Mizunara (oak - Quercus crispula), are managed intensively from planting, to weeding and pruning, to thinning, and final harvest. The SmartWood assessment team, which was lead by SmartWood's Senior Technical Specialist, Walter Smith, was comprised of recognized ecology, forestry and socio-economic specialists from Japan including Dr. Kazuto Arimitsu, Dr. Tadashi Sakamoto and Dr. Ikuo Ota. The team visited various sites in the prefecture, interviewed staff, as well as a broad range of stakeholders, and based its evaluations on the SmartWood Interim Standards for Assessing Forest Management in Japan. Dr. Arimitsu, the forest ecologist on the team, noted "Yamanashi Prefecture is managed to maintain a broad range of ecological attributes, including the preservation of national parks and protected areas of natural forest cover." "Local community groups, in the form of long standing resource protection groups that date back to the Meiji period, are given a broad range of opportunities to benefit from the forest," said Dr. Ikuo Ota, the social scientist on the assessment team. "Their participation in the management and protection of the Yamanashi forest is an essential component of preserving the rural nature of the area for the citizens of Japan."
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