The profitability of a biomass power station is low because its installation cost and fuel cost are high and its power generation efficiency, around 25%, is lower than the efficiency of an LNG power station, about 50%. On the other hand, the profitability of a combined heat and power (CHP) could be higher since it sells both electricity and heat. To prove the profitability of a CHP plant, we developed a tool for assessing profitability on a steam turbine CHP system using wood biomass. Then we assumed four plant sizes, i.e. maximum power output 1,200, 1,600, 1,999, and 5,700 kW, and simulated the internal rate of return and other factors, under the following three scenarios: 1) stand-alone (without heat supply), 2) CHP with steam supply and 3) CHP with hot water supply. We decided two heat prices, 7.7 and 5.2 yen/kWh, referring to the heavy oil price. We found the following results: a) The profitability of CHP became higher than that of the stand-alone case. b) In the case of the 1,200 kW plant, the CHP project could not make a profit under the lower heat price because of its lower power generation efficiency. c) The profitability of CHP with hot water supply became higher than that of CHP with steam supply because the decrease of power output by steam extraction was smaller. d) Larger heat demand is necessary to make the profitability of CHP higher.

This paper provides a full picture of the current status and movements of the forest use of trail running in Japan, based on interviews with the runners who lead its popularization and conflict resolution with other users. Trail running has become popular in Japan since the 2000s as a new type of recreational use of forests, reflecting the massive information available on trail running resulting from conducting major races, the steep increase in the number of runners due to the increase in marathons and fitness trends, and the growing trend of outdoor recreation, especially among the middle-aged population. However, trail running was also subjected to a lot of criticism by hikers, conservationists, and landowners, who pointed out the potential accidents and environmental damage that could take place from the sudden increase in the numbers of trail runners and races. These conflicts resulted in some of the current restrictive regulations toward the forest use for trail running, such as “Rules for Using Nature Parks” issued by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government in 2015. To efficiently handle these conflicts, many leaders of trail runners shared the need for runners’ unified cooperation, and founded the Japan Trail Runners Association to spread awareness among the trail runners and secure their social status. In addition, multiple projects, such as conducting trail running races and tours as well as renewing or maintaining trails, have been carried out by these leading runners through their strong collaboration with the local governments and communities suffering from declining populations in the rural mountain areas to support the local revitalization.

Although a municipal governments started to have a greater role in local forest management, most municipalities are not equipped to serve in this function because of a shortage of manpower, diffculties in consensus building, and a lacks of evaluation systems. There is an the urgent need to develop processes for establishing a municipal forest plan as a master plan of local forest management. The adaptive management (AM) method can be considered as an effective solution. AM helps forest managers to improve sustainability by comprehensive natural resource management methods including planning, doing, checking, and acting. Some cases reported that applying AM is a possible and effective approach towards natural resource management with complexity and uncertainty. Applying AM process to municipal forest planning is supposed to be exceedingly practical for local forest management. It is expected to enhance the effectiveness of the because of its suitability to municipal forest plans and universal evaluation criteria and methods.