2020 Volume 102 Issue 1 Pages 24-30
In Japan, the origin of the forest planning system can be traced back to two events which made a major impact-namely, the 1939 amendment of the Forest Law and the formulation of the forest policy during the Allied occupation of Japan under the General Headquarters/Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers (GHQ/SCAP). My research involved the analysis of the present forest planning system as well as the discourse of policymakers involved in it. It can be concluded that the 1939 amendment to the Forest Law extended the scope of the forest management plan to private forests as well, and was the basis for the current forest planning system which includes technical mechanisms such as forest registers. At the same time, the evaluation of the 1939 amendment of the Forest Law is a point of contention among policymakers, especially with regards to the wartime regime. For this reason, the significance of the 1939 amendment of the Forest Law may have been underestimated after World War II. With regard to the policy under the Allied occupation, the “forestry program” as given in the GHQ/SCAP document provided an accidental opportunity for the formulation of a forest planning system. Revisiting the discourse of policymakers of that period, it can be inferred that as a result of political horse-trading with the occupation policy, the forest planning system formulated at that time laid the foundation of forest policy in Japan after the war.
