Historical Outlook and Present Issue of the Subject about “Forestry Management” at Vocational High Schools during the Postwar Period

Abstract

To examine forestry and forest education at vocational high schools, the history of changes in the purpose and content of subjects related to “Forestry Management” was analyzed. We analyzed it during the postwar period, based on the Ministry’s official guidelines for school teaching and textbooks on the subject of “Forestry Management”, which includes “Forest Economics”, “Forest Management and Registration”, “Forest Measurement”, and “Forestry Management”. The purpose of the subject changed from “training as technical experts in forestry” into “training targeting forest management, particularly sustainable management”. The contents of the subject were classified into eight kinds of elements, which include 30 kinds of details: forest resources and forest management, forest functions, forest measurement, forest valuation, forest planning, management of production, timber circulation, forest policy and legislation. Before the 1990s, the subject included contents related to forestry management based on timber production, but since 1999, when the name of the subject changed, it has added topics related to forest management based on forest multiple functions. As a result, the core ideas of the subject were unclear, and the new textbook lacked consistency. It was necessary to restructure the subject of “Forest Management” based on an examination of technical terms and skills, aiming at the next revision of the textbook.