I attended a lecture on disaster-resistant forestation at Ctec Corporation in Tsu City, Mie Prefecture. The lecturer was Mr. Kenichi Takada, Chairman of the Natural Planting Technology Council, and the day went by quickly as I learned a lot and made some new connections.
The more one learns about the current state of forests, the more obvious it becomes that mountain maintenance will be essential in the future, with spectacular mountain disasters occurring every year throughout Japan.
n August 2014, torrential rains caused a landslide in Hiroshima City; in 2018, a large-scale landslide was caused by the Iburi East Earthquake in Hokkaido; and in 2019, strong winds from Typhoon No. 15 caused a large number of downed trees in Chiba Prefecture, resulting in large-scale long-term power outages. Other natural disasters, such as record-breaking rainfall, earthquakes, and extreme weather events have occurred in many areas, making it impossible to maintain the land and forests.
The "fuel revolution" has driven people away from forests, and the bright forests that used to be used have been replaced by dark forests with aging trees and dense growths of bamboo and bamboo shoots.
The multifaceted functions of forests are important in understanding forests. Forests have many public functions, one of which is the function of preventing landslides and preserving the soil. In order to fulfill these functions, forests must be managed so that they remain healthy.
In particular, if man-made forests such as cedar and cypress that have been cultivated by human hands are not properly managed, they will fall into disrepair, and the public interest function will not be fulfilled. In addition, in order to enhance the biodiversity conservation function, it is essential to sustainably and appropriately manage secondary forests and man-made forests that have been created by human hands.