however, and they have their uses and so are valuable and marketable. But sugi is the new king of the forest.
Natural forest growth is a cycle of succession, where grassland sponsors scrub, which gives way to broadleaf species, and, possibly, conifers. Prior to man’s arrival and for long thereafter, the native forests of central Japan were a mixture of deciduous broadleaf and conifer, and where broadleafs with their broad crowns dominated—chestnuts, oaks, laurel, beech—the understory, which received ample sunlight, was rich in grasses, shrubs, and other plants, while also providing niches for abundant fauna.
The broadleaf forest is by nature varied. Sugi and hinoki are taller and narrower than broadleaf trees, however, and grow more closely together, so the dark floor of a climax conifer forest is usually awash in fallen needles and ferns and little else. At higher elevations and in colder regions very little else will thrive, but when man first arrived in central Japan he found mostly broadleaf forests, liberally interspersed with stands of conifers.
Japan first experienced localized deforestation and its ill effects long ago, when the rulers of the eighth, ninth, and tenth centuries virtually stripped the surrounding valleys to build their capitals at Nara (Heijo-kyo) and Kyoto (Heian-kyo). Their buildings were vast and luxurious and squandered immense quantities of first-growth timber, while gigantic bronze sculptures like the Great Buddha at Todaiji consumed entire hardwood forests for smelting. In aggregate, at this time and ever since, the commoners in towns and peasants in rural areas consumed more of the forest for their subsistence needs than did the ruling classes, but government-directed “command” forest clear-cutting regularly pushed the woodland environment beyond its ability to rebound healthily.
In many cases, the clear-cutting of coniferous woodland allowed healthier, more useful replacement growth to appear, as the natural replacement cycle leads to fast-growing broadleafs. These provide good fuel, their stumps and roots hinder erosion, and new shoots quickly emerge from the stumps, that can in time themselves be harvested. The undergrowth of this kind of replacement forest is ecologically rich and varied.
Unfortunately, because of overexploitation, and particularly the cutting of forests to make new farmland, in previous centuries this positive balance was rarely allowed to emerge. The needs of the peasants like Shinichi’s grandfather—who didn’t require many high-quality conifers but did need hardwood for fuel and forest litter for fertilizer as well as a variety of wild foods—began to collide head on with those of the rulers, who needed prime lumber. The government increasingly felt the need to close forests to peasant use, and it implemented prohibitions and penalties limiting harvesting, transportation, and consumption in clumsy attempts to conserve the resources.
A single hillside is expected to provide a large population with timber, firewood, fertilizer, and arable land, and though one can envision satisfying any two of these biomass needs reasonably, or three with difficulty, to meet all four would seem impossible. Now, however, the forests are producing more than ever before, and everyone, peasant and ruler alike, is getting pretty much what they need. Arrangements that allow long-term mixed use, with clearly defined rights and juridical recourse, have been implemented. Replacement silviculture techniques have been developed and widely disseminated. Conflicts between loggers and farmers over river use have been minimized. And consumption is limited by regulation, taste, the deeply held ethic of conservation, and a variety of technical factors. The new regime of forest management involves the villagers as essential shareholders, utilizes their knowledge and expertise, and provides them with clear economic benefit.
Much of the management and reforesting is made possibly by extensive and detailed tree censuses begun in the mid-seventeenth century, including actual stem counts and descriptions of stands of trees and bamboo. These have evolved into periodically updated forest registers, a key database that government officials, forest wardens, and entrepreneurs can use to plan and coordinate their activity. Similarly, these registers are essential resources for the policy-makers and scholars who write and publish the forestry guidebooks through which the new regenerative forestry methods are disseminated.
The government still reserves extensive forestland for itself, in the form of ohayashi, or “lord’s forests.” These include the best stands of construction-grade timber, the conifer woodlands on the upper slopes. There are mountainsides near Aoyagi that the peasants are forbidden to enter for any purpose without permission, though it is usually granted for cutting and collecting undergrowth, cutting lumber for dams and other irrigation works, and other clearly essential needs. Often villagers are required to pay fees for access, however, and to report dead or fallen trees and violations by others.
The government has become more understanding of villagers’ needs than in Shinichi’s grandfather’s time, but it still feels it must tightly regulate access. Most years, Shinichi and his neighbors are allowed to scavenge nearby logging sites for usable material after logging has been completed, after which the forest will be closed for years to allow regrowth. Villagers are sometimes granted access to forests in return for replanting. Enterprising villagers have been known to obtain permission to replant clear-cut conifer forests in larch, whose needles fall in autumn and can be used as extra fertilizer for the fields, while providing openings for sunlight to reach the forest floor and encourage undergrowth.
Control of most lower forests, largely broadleaf woodland as well as bamboo forest and grassland, has also been granted to the villages. The greater portion is generally communal land, with access governed by the carefully worked-out rules of iriai. Shinichi and many of his neighbors hold forest land with primary rights of disposition, so they can use it as they see fit. But in reality the boundaries are often unclear. Other village households share use of nearby mountains in an arrangement called wariyama, extremely common but at times contentious. These agreements sometimes divide forest access equally among all parties, and sometimes on the basis of the arable land area each household tills, while others stipulate different types of access for different purposes at different times. It is very confusing, and despite the existence of written records, disagreements arise that require arbitration by the other village elders.
Nevertheless, much of the woodland around the village is managed by the villagers themselves, and it meets their needs. Shinichi has standing permission to fell trees for home use or special needs and to gather undergrowth from village land. All of the villagers require more firewood than building timber, and they have standing needs for fertilizer material and forest foodstuffs, so not much tree cutting is initiated by them.
Regardless of the basic forest rights that villagers enjoy, the government designates particularly desirable trees as tomeki, or reserved trees, which can’t be cut by villagers no matter where they stand. In fact, an outstanding tall, straight hinoki about two hundred years old has shaded Shinichi’s work yard since long before his grandfather’s time. This is a tomeki, and though it has stood in place for generations, Shinichi knows that at any time it could be cut and carted away, with no compensation to him or his family. Seen overall, the rights to forest products are basically zoned and divided geographically, but often in shades of gray, with much overlap. Satisfying the many conflicting needs requires adequate oversight.
guardians of the forest
On forestry matters,
