This study applies the nonparametric Tornqvist-Theil index approach to analyze trends of single and total factor productivity growth in the sawmilling industry of Japan between 1970 and 2004. Over the long-term, labor has been the input that has experienced the highest growth in productivity: 1.88% per year. This result likely reflects the significant increase in capital stock. Total factor productivity (TFP) grew at an average annual compound rate of 0.17% as a result of growth in output and aggregated inputs by -2.61% and -2.78%, respectively. TFP went downward with the decrease of output, and upward with the adjustment of inputs. The growth of TFP in the Japanese sawmill industry is lower than that of competing countries in North America. This shows that the Japanese sawmill industry has been losing its competitiveness and indicates a need for restructuring of the industry to sustain its position.

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Due to the rise in motorization in recent years, the abolishment of unprofitable bus routes is on the increase. From the point of view of accessibility for physically impaired users, there is a demand for constructing regional public transport governance through the collaboration of a self-governing municipal government well-versed in the region, and various other bodies composed of regional inhabitants. In the bus planning stages, it is important to draw up a concept of the bus that sufficiently reflects the opinions of local residents through the cooperation of academic specialists. If in running the bus, the self-governmental administration shares the role between NPO foundations and the contractor, a service that is highly efficient and convenient can be provided. The administration should cover any losses connected with running costs and assist management with all related organizations. It is preferable that the contractor carries out the running of the bus services. This means running an efficient service based on the contractor's current resources. NPO foundations that understand the requirements of the users and can operate the service while implementing improvements are desirable as the core of management; however, it is necessary to undertake management while sharing information between municipalities, contractors and academics.

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The Tatsuyama-mura Forest Cooperative set about securing new forestry workers in 1978, and improved its training organization. This paper describes the results of an oral survey of 83 new forestry workers who entered the Cooperative in the 1998 fiscal year, and investigates their hometowns, their present places of residence, present occupations, etc. From these data, the new workers were classified according to a combination of hometown, present place of employment, and present occupation, and each feature was analyzed. As a result, although 1/3 of the new instruction group members remain as employed staff of the Tatsuyama-mura Forest Cooperative, it became clear that the percentage of workers who remain in forestry, including those who left the cooperative, is a little less than 60%. The rate of those remaining in forestry is highest for people from nearby areas, followed by other areas, and then by Tatsuyama-mura. However, the non-forestry employed graduates of the program from Tatsuyama-mura changed to employment in the chief areas of the local economy, such as public offices, and therefore have a large influence on the local community. In addition, although the rate of employment in forestry of people from other areas is low, it is standard for society as a whole, and a strong tendency to transfer to different areas is seen in this group. It is assumed that their desire for self-actualization and to take advantage of special knowledge and technology is strong. Moreover, the people from other areas who continued in forestry returned to their hometowns in many cases, and the result of training in the instruction group is reflected in local forest cooperatives and local forestry management.

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In Kyushu, in recent years, there has been a large-scale demand for domestic logs by large sawmills, laminated log manufacturers and plywood factories. Accordingly, we expect that the existing system of distribution of logs will change drastically. Moreover, the log auction market in Kyushu has been growing significantly. We discuss the functional changes in the log auction market that resulted from the large-scale demand. 1) In Hita, some market keepers themselves began to buy stumpages in order to become supplier of logs. It seems that logs could be distributed through various markets due to the high specialization of the intraregional sawmills. Therefore, the buyers placed considerable importance on the market functions of collection and sortation of logs even after the large-scale demand occurred. 2) In Miyakonojo, market keepers have ensure logs volume by aiding local log production dealers to expand through advances payment. The degree of dependence on the market by the large intraregional sawmills has declined, and the auction market has become a complementary procurement means for sawmills. 3) In Hita, since the number of buyers has decreased, the market's function of log price formation has become weaker, while it is suggested that laminated log manufacturers and plywood factories have been growing pricing power.

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Today, many schools have school forest volunteer activity programs, where leaders from various sectors guide students. To evaluate leaders' guiding skills by themselves, study the validities and the problems of self-evaluation, questionnaire surveys were carried out. As a result of principal component analysis, two factors: synthetic guiding ability and facilitative/instructive ability are found out. The skills such as "have students understand the purpose of activities" carried weight with synthetic guiding ability. Especially leaders' occupation had an effect on their abilities. On synthetic guiding ability, teachers were evaluated the highest and public employees the lowest. On facilitative ability, both teachers and public employees got high scores. On instructive ability, forestry engineers showed high score. On synthetic guiding ability, the score of self-evaluating had a tendency to be lower than that of evaluating by others, and the more times citizen volunteers had participated in forest volunteer activities, the lower their scores became. So self-evaluation is useful to prioritize the skills should be acquired, to grasp the differences of leaders' who have different attributes guiding abilities. On the other hand, it is necessary to take steps to evaluate their guiding abilities using consistent criteria, such as the leaders meeting on criteria for self-evaluation.

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[in Japanese]

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