Abstract
Our proposal to conserve the Senbon-matsubara coastal forest in Numazu City, in central Japan, is based on our successive vegetational and environmental studies from 1991 through 1996. The Senbon-matsubara coastal forest stretches about 10 km from east to west as a line along the Suruga Bay coast, and has the area of 90 ha. The forest is mainly composed of Japanese black pine (Pinus thunbergii), which have been repeatedly planted over 400 years. Dense stands of the pine have protected farms and villages against natural desasters of tidal waves and/or strong sea breezes. It was, however, suggested recently that old pine trees in this forest are declining and the structure of this forest is likely to change from a pure pine forest to one of broad-leaved evergreen by invasion of many evergreen and deciduous trees. Our plan to conserve the forest includes cutting most of the broad-leaved trees invading into the pine forest and also maintaining some communities of maritime woody plants such as Pittosporum tobira, Cinnamomum japonicum, Daphniphyllum teijsmannii, Ilex integra, Rhus succedanea etc.
