Abstract
Energy supply by firewood through “Wakeshiba” was estimated by hearing from inhabitants and biomass survey of coppice woodland in a village of Shiso City, Hyogo Prefecture. In “Wakeshiba”, a traditional firewood-harvesting system from “Satoyama”, the common coppice woodland was shared among inhabitants every year and they could harvest firewood from the shared woodland. The rotation of the woodland was 10 to 15 years. Energy content of harvested firewood from the shared area reached to 23 - 33 GJ/year/household. This amount was more than half of 43 GJ meaning an average consumption per household in Japan. The total area of “Wakeshiba” was only a small part of whole forest area in the village, indicating that there was sufficient woody resource for energy supply to household in the village.
