Abstract
Japan possesses approximately 1% of the world’s forest stock and 3.5% of its total planted forest area. However, due to high production costs, both the level of forest resource utilization and the ratio of reforested areas following clear-cutting remain low. Meanwhile, contemporary human society is rapidly depleting fossil resources that took hundreds of millions of years to accumulate, indicating an inevitable transition to a new phase. In this context, the author has identified a strong negative correlation between the supply of primary energy or petroleum and the volume of domestic timber production as well as the wood self-sufficiency. This suggests that Japanese forestry has been heavily influenced by an external “great force” rather than by its internal factors. In the next phase, forestry will become an essential sector, and the forms of forest landscapes and their relationship with human society will undergo substantial transformations. At such a turning point, the crucial task for forestry economics is to explore and envision the social
institutions and technologies that will support the future forest, in collaboration with stakeholders interested in forest and forestry issues.
