France's diverse tree species selection represents a model for sustainable forest restoration
Updated by Kotaro Nagasawa on October 17, 2025, 10:44 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 an auditor of Jumonji Gakuen Educational Corporation and 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.
*Previous column is here.
France, a Forestry Country that Imitates Nature, Increases Production of Large-Diameter Hardwoods Read: Hitoshi Kadowaki, France, the Land of Hardwoods: From "Right Tree in the Right Place" to Natural Forestry (Part 1)
In this issue, we would like to introduce the book's impressive description of the characteristics of the French forestry industry and what can be seen from a comparison between Japan and France in the forestry industry.
France is full of oaks. The French love oaks. The French love oaks," the book says. The following is a quote from the text.
The girder beams of the old Notre Dame, made of massive amounts of oak, had been assembled since its completion in 1225."
Oak has been used extensively since Gaul for dwellings, for fortifications, for armory and harness, and for household utensils.
In Fontainebleau, a suburb of Paris, there was a 680-year-old oak known as the 'Oak of Jubiter.'
French oak casks age brandy more mellowly than American or English oak, even if they are the same common oak."
The fitted wooden planks on the floor of the Palace of Versailles are also made of oak.
Napoleonic-era backgammon boards are also oak."
Of course, the farmer's hoe is an oak.
The fireplace frame, the mantelpiece, and the wood for the furnace are all oak.
The chest of drawers, the tableware display cabinet, the charcoal used to bake baguettes in the bakery, the bistro sign, the wine corks, the antique furniture tables and armchairs, all oak."
When you end your life, a white wooden oak serves as your coffin, and you are delivered to the other side."
Of the approximately 70% of France's forests covered by hardwoods, more than half are covered by oaks.
According to the same book, the oak is a member of the genus Quercus of the Fagaceae family in Japan. Oak is a genus, under which are the deciduous broad-leaved oak and oak (Kashiwa), and the evergreen broad-leaved oak (Oak). Oak is the most common species in France.
Oak wood is extremely hard, water-resistant, and durable, and is considered to expand and contract little due to humidity. It also has a beautiful grain and deepens in color the more it is used. These characteristics make it suitable for a wide range of uses, including furniture, building materials, ships, and wine barrels.
There are more than 300 species of oaks. France is a country of diverse and rich oak vegetation. The distribution of topography, climate, and soil in France is a complex mosaic, and the distribution of vegetation is chaotic, due in part to the large number of small forest holdings. As a general trend, broadleaf trees are dominant in the northern and western plains, and conifers in the southern and eastern mountains. European oak (Quercus serrata) dominates in the west, Cecil oak (Quercus crispula) in the Paris Basin, and from there to the east and north to the mountains, broadleaf trees are intermingled with conifers and replaced by beech. The distribution of the dominant tree species in a given area is what the author refers to as "the right tree for the right place.
France's forest coverage (the ratio of forests to land area) will be about 321 TP3T at the end of 2023, the same level as Germany. It is not as high as Japan (651 TP3T), Finland (711 TP3T), or Austria (471 TP3T). However, there is a history of forest cover that once fell to a few tenths of a TP3T due to overcutting, but has since recovered to nearly triple that due to forest protection policies. Currently, the forest area per capita is 0.25 ha, which is higher than Japan's 0.19 ha.
The restoration of the forests was achieved not by planting single trees or by planting only fast-growing trees, but by selecting a variety of tree species and land use according to the complex geography of the country. Given this history, the author believes that France can be called a forested country.
A major characteristic of French forestry is "multi-tiered forests. The basic concept is to manage three types of forests according to geographical conditions such as latitude and altitude: "high forests" of conifers, "low forests" of broad-leaved trees, and "medium forests" that combine high and low forests in a multilayered manner.
The management of multi-storied forests is focused on the spontaneous growth of hardwoods that have a long period of time before harvesting. The traditional characteristics of French hardwood forestry are natural regeneration and long harvesting seasons.
The second half of the book is a comparison and discussion between Japan and France. The author's message is that "the right tree in the right place" will be very important for forest restoration in the world in the future.
In discussing the right tree in the right place, the author mentions "primary forests" and "potential natural vegetation". This would be the forest aspect in the absence of human intervention. The potential natural vegetation influences human culture, and can be called the culture of the terrestrial forest in western Japan in the warm-temperate zone and the culture of the oak forest in eastern Japan including the cool-temperate zone. He points out that Japanese people in the early modern period and afterwards pushed forward with the artificial planting of coniferous forests because of the influence of German forestry, but also because Japanese cedar showed superiority over German spruce as an industrial timber.
The question I had in the history of German forestry, "Why were the teachers French?" was put to rest in this book. The simple answer is that France was an advanced forestry country. Why, then, was French forestry, which was the most advanced in Europe at least until the 17th century, buried in history, and why was the image of Germany as the only advanced forestry country established?
This is only a guess, but it may be due to the influence of the French Revolution, which led to the total denial of the Ancien Régime (the old regime). In Japan, too, since the Meiji Restoration, Edo has continued to be spoken of in terms of being a lagging era, and the advanced nature of the Edo forestry industry was rediscovered and transmitted by a foreigner (Conrad Tatman). I feel that Hitoshi Kadowaki's book has the same significance as Tatman's in terms of uncovering buried history. (Kotaro Nagasawa, Director, Platinum Network)
[Author's introduction
Hitoshi Kadowaki: Born in Urawa City in 1961. Completed advanced studies at the Graduate School of Human Ecology, Université National de Vincennes-Saint-Denis (University of Paris VIII), France (Japan-France comparative study of forest ecosystems and forestry). He is the author of "Ecoculture kara mita sekai: katakana, tradition, art de yomu de yomu" (The World from the Perspective of Ecoculture: Reading through Thoughts, Traditions, and Art) published by Minerva Shobo, "Latest Book on the Basics of Global Environmental Problems: Coexistence with the Earth and Sustainable Development" published by Shuwa System, and others. Translations include "The Tree Thief: Whose Forest is it?
■Related Sites
France, the Land of Broad-leaved Trees (Tsukiji Shokan)
