The 19th century saw the fulfillment of a great achievement in human history: the "cultivated forestry industry
Updated by Kotaro Nagasawa on June 04, 2025, 9:30 PM JST
Kotaro NAGASAWA
（Platinum Initiative Network, Inc.
Born in Tokyo in 1958. （Engaged in research on infrastructure and social security at Mitsubishi Research Institute, Inc. During his first few years with the company, he was involved in projects related to flood control, and was trained by many experts on river systems at the time to think about the national land on a 100- to 1,000-year scale. He is currently an advisor to Mitsubishi Research Institute, Inc. He is also a part-time lecturer at Tokyo City University. Coauthor of "Introduction to Infrastructure," "New Strategies from the Common Domain," and "Forty Years After Retirement. D. in Engineering.
*Click here for the first part.
Uncovering the Two Crises Japan Has Faced Due to Excessive Logging of Forests Read "How the Japanese Have Created Forests" by Conrad Tatman (Part 1)
At the end of the 17th century, when 80% of Japan's mountains were bare (Kumazawa Bansan), some intellectuals of the time sounded the alarm (e.g., Yamaga Soko is known in addition to Bansan), and the government (shogunate and clans) began taking measures. The Shogunate first surveyed the boundaries of the land and the state of devastation, and based on this survey, clarified the jurisdiction (of the owners of the forests), and then regulated the area. As a result, forests owned by lords and the shogunate, the scope of which had not always been clear, were classified from privately owned forests as "orin," and preserved trees within the orin were designated as "tomoku," while mountains with restricted use were designated as "tomiyama. These conservation measures became the axis of forest administration by the lords and the shogunate. The "Imperial Forest Ledger," which required regular reports to the shogunate on the status of timber resources in the imperial forests, was created and used as the basis for formulating logging plans.
However, the above passive and defensive forest administration alone was not enough to meet the growing demand for forest resources, and from the beginning of the 18th century, serious efforts toward afforestation began to be seen.
Many agricultural technical books appeared during this period. One of the best known is Miyazaki Yasusada's "Agricultural Complete Works" (1697). Numerous such manuals were published throughout the country. The authors were agricultural leaders, village officials, philanthropists, and low-ranking officials who traveled around the countryside. The contents were based on tried and tested experiences in various regions during the 17th century, and covered a wide range of topics such as technology, agricultural practices, environmental conditions, labor and thought practices, human relations, and village organizational patterns, and were extremely specific. With regard to forestry, the book described in particular detail how to make nurseries for afforestation, and how to thin the forest and clear branches. New ideas such as tree rotation were also described and disseminated.
The spread of silvicultural knowledge has led to an upswing in lumber production capacity, especially in areas with good locations. Demand has always been abundant, and lumber merchants have emerged to connect production areas with consumption areas. Artificial forestation spread not only to merchants and villages, but also to clans and the shogunate.
Because of the high cost of artificial afforestation, production areas aimed to produce high value-added varieties and products, and this competition led to the creation of so-called brand-name products. These include cedar from Yoshino (barrel board lumber), persimmon board from Omi, charcoal from Owase, and small logs from Ome.
The 18th century was thus a time when the conditions necessary for planted forestry were fostered in certain areas, and the makuuchi clan and entrepreneurial foresters seized this opportunity to create sustainable planted forests.
Land use-related institutions suitable for the industrialization of plantation forestry were also explored during this period. The following are some examples.
Yamawari" is a measure to divide the use rights of community-owned land, such as admission land, to each household to clarify their responsibility for maintaining the land. The "seasonal forests" were sold in advance to timber merchants. The term "partial forest" refers to an arrangement between the parties concerned to share the harvest of a forest, such as when a lord grants a portion of his forest to farmers who have donated their labor. In other words, a shift from the closed and rigid system of "tomoku" and "tomorin" by the shogunate in the 17th century to a more flexible system, which facilitated the efficient use of capital, labor, and land to grow planted forests and forestry.
By the end of the 18th century, planted forests could be seen everywhere in the archipelago, and furthermore, the area of planted forests increased rapidly in the 19th century. By 1868, at the end of the Edo period, a large area of planted cedar and cypress forests had been created from Kyushu to the Tohoku region.
Technological developments, the maturation of markets, and the spread of flexible and rational institutions ushered Japan into the era of plantation forestry in the 19th century. Tatman describes it as "a kind of revolution fulfilled.
Reading through this book, one can see that the 260 years of the Edo period were a period of crisis and recovery for Japan's forests, with the spread of plantation forestry in the 19th century, a certain recovery of the forests, and even the production of brand-name timber products. Tokuji Chiba, "Study of Bald Mountainwas a book about an area left behind by these larger trends.
The publication of "The Green Archipelago - Forestry in Preindustrial Japan" (original title: "How the Japanese Have Made Forests") seems to have come as a shock to forestry professionals around the world. The world's prevailing theory was that sustainable forestry was established in Germany in the early modern period. This book, published in 1989, revealed that Japan also had excellent forest resource management practices in the same period (rather than earlier than Germany).
Joachim Rathkau, a German author of "Timber and Civilization" (Tsukiji Shokan, 2013), praised Tatman's book and compared Japan and Germany, stating. In Japan, however, forests were created by farmers living in the vicinity of the forests, and this continued until the middle of the 20th century. In other words, Germany is elite-driven, while Japan is front-line-driven.
It is true that the experts of the time sounded the alarm against the nationwide deforestation that occurred in the 17th century, and administrative agencies took measures to prohibit logging, but these were defensive measures to prevent deforestation. Many unknown practitioners played a leading role in the subsequent nationwide trial and error of afforestation, the sharing of technical information through the dissemination of afforestation books and other means, and the productive developments that led to the development of planted forestry in the 18th century. The fact of the creation of brand-name products in each region also shows the presence of regional initiative and interregional competition.
The original title of this book is "The Green Archipelago" in literal translation. I do not know how the Japanese title came to be "How have Japanese people created forests? However, after reading the book, if I were to honestly answer the title in the form of a question, it would be "through the voluntary ingenuity of many people throughout Japan.
Germany and Japan are the two countries that have created the "cultivated forestry," a feat of human history. Japan is unique in that it achieved this through grassroots (bottom-up) efforts without a prominent leader or leading group.
When I think about it, I am not the only one who feels that there is something of world-historical significance here. (Kotaro Nagasawa, Director, Platinum Network)
About the Author
Conrad Tatman (1934-) is an American historian specializing in early modern Japanese history. His work is characterized by historical analysis from multiple perspectives, including political, economic, social, and environmental. He is particularly interested in environmental history. He has worked at Yale University for many years and is currently a professor emeritus at Yale University. He is the author of Japan Before Perry: A Short History (1981), Tokugawa Ieyasu: Shogun (1983), and The Lumber Industry in Early Modern Japan" (1995), "A History of Japan" (2000), and "How Japanese People Have Related to Nature: From the Birth of the Japanese Islands to the Present Day" (Japan An Environmental History) (translated by Reiko Kurosawa, Tsukiji Shokan 2018), etc.
■Related Sites
How the Japanese have created the forest (Tsukiji Shokan)
