Kochi Pref. introduces tax to preserve forests

Driving along the meandering Shimanto River in the town of Taisho, western Kochi Prefecture, is like taking a forest bath. But it is not a natural forest. About 80% of the town's mountains are covered by planted "hinoki" (Japanese cypress). Step off the road into the forest, and gloom prevails in the mass of trees, some with trunks as thin as bean sprouts. There is no undergrowth on the sparse topsoil, which has been depleted by rainwater. All this because thinning of the forest has been delayed, according to local foresters. "If things go on at this rate for 20 years, no recovery can be expected," said Shizuo Yamamoto, chief of the forestry union. The Japanese cedar ("sugi") and "hinoki" planted to meet postwar lumber needs after all the broadleaf trees were cut are now mostly aged 30 to 40. The union annually thins about 300 hectares of the forest, but cannot catch up with what needs to be done because the town's forests cover more than 18,000 hectares. Clearing of the undergrowth and thinning of the trees used to provide fertilizers and fuel, but the living environment has changed and there is now less demand for these. The town's population has halved in the last 50 years. At one place, workers using chain saws were felling trees that were more than 20 meters tall, but left the felled trees without cutting them up into smaller pieces as they used to do. "It's too expensive to do so with the subsidies we are receiving, but at least, subsidies are better than no bread," one of the workers said. Kochi, with forests occupying 84% of the land, is Japan's most forested prefecture. The prefectural government began subsidizing 90% of tree-cutting expenses in fiscal 2002 to promote the thinning of some 55,000 hectares in five years, or more than 40% of the total. However, there is resistance on the part of landowners to the thinning program. "If we cut trees in mountains that have been left untouched for such a long time, the remaining trees will also die," said a forest owner. "As we could send our child to university with the proceeds from just one good hinoki, we planted those trees for our sons and grandchildren. So, we cannot easily cut them to preserve the environment and mountains," he said. The prefectural assembly approved a new ordinance on March 19 to introduce a forest environment preservation tax in fiscal 2003, beginning in April. The prefectural government expects additional revenue of about 140 million yen a year from the new tax, which will be collected by increasing the per capita resident tax by 500 yen. The money will be used to thin privately owned forests, which faces a danger of topsoil runoff, and to launch a campaign for forest preservation - the main purpose of the new tax. "Before everything, we would like people to recover their interest in mountains," said Takehiro Ikemoto, head of the Forestry Bureau at the prefectural government. (c) 2003 KYODO NEWS.