Journal of Forest Economics

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Although the roles and jurisdictional tasks of municipal forest administration have increased with the implementation of the Private Forest Management Entrustment System in Japan, it has also identified the inadequacies of the staffing and system. In this study, we examined the status of outsourcing within this system based on the results of questionnaire surveys of 1,612 municipalities and 47 prefectures in Japan. The results revealed that the outsourcing rate of Private Forest Management Entrustment System-related tasks were higher than those of forest law-related tasks, however, approximately 70% of the municipalities were still conducting these tasks independently. Moreover, forest owners’cooperatives were primarily tasked with outsourcing partners, while consulting companies were the most common for data acquisition and analysis. Furthermore, the existence of organizations supporting municipalities affected outsourcing promotion. Specifically, municipalities with more outsourced operations had a higher implementation rate of each Private Forest Management Entrustment System-related task, indicating rapid and sophisticated progress. However, the results also revealed that not all tasks could be outsourced; furthermore, outsourcing is difficult for municipalities with limited human resources, and support is needed for specifications and calculating the basis for cost estimations.

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The number of visitors to national parks has decreased due to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). The purpose of this study is to analyze the impact of COVID-19 on 34 national parks in Japan and to discuss the policy implications. We conducted surveys on recreation demand of national parks and collected data on visits before and after the pandemic. We estimated the impact of COVID-19 using a multiple discrete-continuous extreme value (MDCEV) model. The results are as follows. First, the number of visitors of elderly people at high risk of serious illness has decreased among the pandemic. In contrast, the number of visits to natural-type national parks with low risk of infection has not decreased. Second, travel subsidies of the Japanese government were insufficient to compensate the impact of COVID-19. Additional travel subsidies of at least ￥2,000 per visit are required for the full compensation of the impact. Third, the results showed that the deregulation of vehicle restrictions could improve visitation level in the national parks with vehicle regulation. However, it could decrease the number of visits in parks without vehicle restrictions.

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