Silviase/jgov_v1.4_full_ann huggingface dataset:
### 2. Wood Demand Expansion to Date

#### 2.1. Housing Sector

Approximately 40% of Japan’s wood demand is used for construction. In particular, the trend of new housing starts of wooden houses significantly influences wood demand as a whole.

In Japan’s traditional wooden houses, approximately $ 0.20 \, m^{3} $ wood is used for each $ 1 \, m^{2} $ of floor area. The share of domestic/imported wood in traditional wooden houses differs among the parts of wooden structure (Fig.1-6). On the average, the share of domestic wood is as low as 30% or less. Therefore, domestic wood has margin to expand its demand in the housing sector.

Under such circumstances, the Forestry Agency began to implement the “New Wood Products Distribution and Processing Project” and the “New Wood Production Project” for the stable supply of wood products to major housing companies or local home builders with lower costs. As a result, major housing companies began to use domestic wood more aggressively in their business activities. Also, plywood mills began to use large amounts of domestic wood for softwood plywood production. The share of domestic wood in material inputs of plywood mills reached as high as 64% in 2009.

Fig.1-6: Share of domestic/imported wood in each part of traditional wooden houses in Japan

Further, the Forestry Agency is promoting local housing projects through the cooperation among forest owners, log producers, lumber producers, and local home builders, who are willing to use local wood products. Local governments are also promoting the use of local wood in housing sector.

#### 2.2. Other Sectors

After the revision of the Building Standard Law in 1987, large scale buildings with wooden structure were allowed to be built with wooden structure. Also, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) began to promote wooden structure and wooden interior in school buildings from 1985.

Since 2003, the MAFF is promoting wooden structure and wooden interior in its own office buildings, wood use in civil engineering projects, and procurement of wooden products, under its fundamental principle of “wooden structure, wooden interior, and wooden products.”

As for civil engineering projects, the Forestry Agency added popular wooden structure, including wooden fence, to the public construction work standard specifications. The "Green Procurement Act" in 2001 also promotes the use of small-diameter thinned logs for public construction projects. Private companies also developed new construction techniques with wood products, including the ground reinforcement technique with wood stakes.

As for daily necessities, office equipment, paper for printing, envelopes, name cards, and paper bottles for drink which are produced from thinned wood are beginning to be used. As for energy supply, chips and wooden pellets are becoming more popular. Finally, wood products exports are increasing since 2001, with the major targets of China and Korea.
3. Current Topics on Wood Demand Expansion
3.1. Wooden Public Buildings

##### 3.1.1. Recent trend

The share of wooden buildings in public buildings is lower than that of buildings in general (Fig.1-7). This is because the central government and local governments promoted non-wood building structure for the prevention of disaster after the World War II.

In May 2010, the new legislation to promote wood use in public building was adopted in the Diet, put into force in October.

The Basic Plan under the new legislation turned the previous “non-wood policy” to the “wooden structure and wooden interior decoration as long as possible.” The plan promotes wooden structure for the lower height building which are exempt from fire resistant structure.

In 2009, The MEXT and the Forestry Agency established the "study team on wooden school buildings." The team studied possible measures to promote wood use in school institutions to publish a booklet on the points for attention to implement the projects and the case studies on wooden school buildings.

Fig. 1-7: Share of wooden structure in public buildings

##### 3.1.2. Analysis

Generally, public buildings require higher fire-resistant performance. Wood products can be used for public buildings as long as those products satisfy the performance standards.

Also, the costs of wooden structure buildings can be equivalent to those of reinforced concrete (RC) structure buildings (Table 1-1). However, the costs of wooden public buildings tend to become higher, due to the lack of past experiences, use of specialized components, and too many considerations on design.

For the development of wooden public buildings, large amount of wood satisfying various standards, including long length, large diameter, JAS standard, legality and sustainability, need to be procured for a very short period of time limited by the fiscal policy of governments.

However, the supply of wood products for wooden public buildings is insufficient. For example, the ratio of artificially dried lumber in domestic lumber production is as low as 30%. The share of JAS certified lumber mills is also as low as 10%.

Further, staffs in governments or designers in building design office do not have enough knowledge on large scale wooden building construction.

Type	Size	Construction costs (million yen)
Wood	RC
Office building	One-storied ( $ 500m^{2} $ )	117	127
Two-storied ( $ 500m^{2} $ )	142	145
School building	One-storied ( $ 500m^{2} $ )	98	102
Two-storied ( $ 1,500m^{2} $ )	377	341

Note: Construction costs are estimation for building with each structure under the same conditions.

Table 1-1: Construction costs of public buildings with wood and reinforced concrete (RC) structures
##### 3.1.3. Challenges

Based upon above analyses, following measures need to be implemented.

- Introduction of wooden structure for low-rise public buildings, and introduction of wooden interior decoration for all public buildings.

- Cost reduction through standardization of size and structure of buildings.

- Improvement of wood products supply suitable for public buildings.

Promotion of wooden structure to local governmental staffs or designers in building design office. Development of specialists on wooden buildings.

- Revision of standard on wooden buildings, in response to the development of wood use technology.

#### 3.2. Energy Use of Wood Biomass

##### 3.2.1. Current Trend

In response to the “Renewable Portfolio Standard Law” in 2002, which requires electric power companies to procure electricity produced from renewable energy for certain quantity, the number of thermal power plants which use wood biomass with coal for power generation is increasing.

The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) is studying the introduction of the “Feed in Tariff System” for renewable energy, including power generation from biomass.

Further, wood biomass use is now given a "credit" on carbon emission reduction, under the "Domestic Credit System" and the "Offset Credit (J-VER) System."

##### 3.2.2. Analysis

Among the variety of wood biomasses, most of "mill residue wood" and "construction refuse wood" are already almost fully utilized. Therefore, the use of "unused thinned wood" is inevitable for the promotion of energy use of wood biomass (Fig.1-8). However, the cost of collection, transportation, and processing of "unused thinned wood" is still very high.

The prices of wood biomass per heat value are mostly equivalent to those of fossil fuels (Fig.1-9). However, the introduction costs of wood biomass burners are much higher than those of fossil fuel burners.

Fig.1-8: Production and utilization of wood biomass

Fig.1-9: Prices per heat value for wood biomass and fossil fuels
Among the combustion system of wood chips, heat supply with chip boiler is more efficient than “gasifying heat and electricity supply system” or “steam power generation system.”

Although the supply volume of wood pellet is increasing, the production capacity of each plant is much smaller than that of European countries, because of the small size of lumber mills which supply material to the pellet plants. In fact, average production volume of pellet plants is 100-1,000 tons in Japan, while that in European countries is more than 10,000 tons. Therefore, competition between domestically produced wood pellets and imported wood pellets may become intensified in the near future.

##### 3.2.3. Challenges

Based upon above analyses, following measures need to be implemented.

Stable supply of unused thinned wood with lower costs.

- Development of demand for wood biomass through various policy measures.

- Reduction of initial costs for the introduction of wood biomass burners.

- Stable supply of wood pellets.

- Development of new technologies of fuel production from wood biomass.

- Improvement of consumer services.

## Case study: Mixed use of wood biomass in thermal power plant

An electric power generation company “S” in Niihama, Ehime prefecture, initiated the use of wood chips in conjunction with coals for power generation. The wood chips are processed in its own facility from unused thinned wood collected from the area surrounding the power plants by its affiliated companies. The plant plans to use 12.5 thousand tons of unused thinned wood (mixture rate: 2.5%) annually.

Photo: Storage of unused thinned wood in thermal power plant

#### 3.3. Wood Export

##### 3.3.1. Current trend

The value of Japan’s wood products exports has increased since 2001 (Fig.1-10). Most of exported products are highly processed products, including wood board or builders’ joinery and carpentry of wood

The Japanese government is promoting the exports of value-added wood products to China and Korea. The Government is promoting Japan's wood products through exhibition in the housing trade shows in China and Korea.

In August 2010, the Japan Wood Products Export Promotion Council signed an agreement with the China's National

Fig.1-10: Value of wood exports from Japan
Standard Management Committee for the “Wooden Structure Design Standard.” The Council will participate in the revision process of the “Wooden Structure Design Standard” so that Japan’s wood species are included in the Standard.

##### 3.3.2. Analysis

Japan’s wood products industry is slow to develop wood products for export, which take into consideration the consumers’ needs in the target countries. This is because most of wood products companies in Japan have been supplying wood products solely to domestic consumers.

In contrast, the US and Canada have been implementing comprehensive wood export strategy with the target of China, which incorporates both wood supply and technical assistance, for more than ten years, through the government and private sector cooperation.

In 2009, the Chinese Government announced the “Forest Products Industry Revitalization Plan” to maintain the world’s largest producer and exporter of furniture, wood-based panels, wood flooring, and wood doors. Through this plan, China is expected to further promote its wood import for the export of value-added products.

##### 3.3.3. Challenges

Based upon above analyses, following measures need to be implemented.

- “Marketing” wood products, in response to the needs of consumers in the target countries.

- Investigation of the standards and regulations in the target countries for necessary revisions.

- Strong cooperation between public and private sectors for the promotion of wood exports.

### 4. Toward the New “Wood Culture”

#### 4.1. Prerequisites for the wood demand expansion

For the wood demand expansion, following measures need to be implemented.

- Development of stable supply system of raw material (e.g. coordination and consolidation of forestry practices, expansion of forest road system, introduction of forestry machines, human resource development).

- Development of processing and distribution system of wood products.

Promotion of Research and Development (e.g. development of new wood products and new wooden materials).

- Promotion of consumers’ understanding on wood use (e.g. national initiative on wood use promotion, wood use education, visualization of environmental contribution through wood use).

- Development of social scientists in wood use (e.g. specialists on distribution, marketing, or environmental impact assessment of wood use).

- Strong cooperation among stakeholders.

#### 4.2. Toward the New “Wood Culture”

The expanded wood demand would contribute to forestry production activities and proper forest management.

For the expansion of wood demand, sustainable use of forest resources is very important. Forest resources need to be maintained by keeping the volume of demand taking into account of the volume of forest growth, and forests need to be conserved by replanting in harvested areas.

Japan is the country of “wood culture,” which fully makes use of various wood according to their characteristics. It is expected that the new “wood culture” is created through the efforts for wood demand expansion.
## Chapter II Global Warming and Forest

### 1. Global warming

According to the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report (AR4), warming of the climate system is unequivocal and very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations. The Kyoto Protocol sets legally binding targets of greenhouse gas emission reduction by at least 5%, compared with the base year 1990 for developed countries, during the first commitment period 2008-2012. Japan’s emission reduction commitment is 6%.

The total volume of Japan’s greenhouse gas emission was 1.209 billion $ CO_{2} $ -tons in 2009, 5.7% decline from the previous year. This volume is 4.1% less than that of the base year of 1990 (Fig.2-1).

Fig.2-1: Japan’s greenhouse gas emission for FY2009

### 2. Actions toward the achievement of the Kyoto Protocol Commitment

#### 2.1. Promotion of forest sink activities

Under the Kyoto Protocol, greenhouse gas removals by sink resulting from “afforestation,” “reforestation,” and “forest management” may be accounted for to meet the emission reduction commitment. Japan sets the domestic target of removal by forest at 13 Mt-C/year (47.67 Mt- $ CO_{2} $ /year, or 3.8% of the volume of total emission in the base year).

To meet the removal target of 13 Mt-C/year through carbon sink, Japan has been conducting comprehensive measures including promotion of forest management, wood supply, and wood use.

#### 2.2. Credit systems in forest related area

In Japan, several systems provide “credits” for emission reduction or carbons sink through the use of wood biomass or proper forest management.

As of December 2010, the “Domestic Credit System” has issued 35 thousand tons- $ CO_{2} $ of credits for 44 forest-related projects, including the boiler fuel transition from fossil fuel to wood biomass, while the “Offset Credit (J-VER) System” has issued 35 thousand tons- $ CO_{2} $ of credits for 26 forest-related projects including the fuel transition and proper forest management through thinning.

### 3. International Negotiations for Global Warming after 2013

Currently, negotiations on the international framework after 2013 are underway. The COP16 of UNFCCC, held in Cancun, Mexico, in November-December 2010, adopted the “Cancun Agreements” which took note of the emission reduction targets submitted by developed and developing countries as formal documents.

Regarding forest issues, the accounting approaches of forest sink and harvested wood products (HWP) and the issue of “reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries (REDD-plus)” were discussed.

These issues will be discussed toward the COP17 in South Africa in November-December 2011.
### 1. Forest Management

#### 1.1. Multiple functions of forests

Forests have multiple functional roles, including carbon sequestration and biodiversity conservation. In order to fulfill those functions, it is necessary to develop vigorous and diversified forests.

#### 1.2. Forest resources

Two third of Japan’s land area is covered with forests. The total area of forests is 25 million hectares. Approximately 40% of these forests are artificially planted forests. The major species of planted forests are sugi, hinoki, and karamatsu (larch). The ownership of forests can be divided into approximately 60% for private owners, 30% for national government, and 10% for local governments.

The total volume of forest resources reached 4.4 billion $ m^{3} $ in 2007 (Fig.3-1). The forest resources in planted forests are now at the stage for intensive use.

#### 1.3. Forest management

In order to maintain the multiple functional roles of forests, forests need to be properly managed and conserved.

The Forestry Agency is promoting “thinning” through the assistance for joint thinning projects among forest owners, construction of forest road, and use of thinned wood for public works, with the goal of 3.3 million hectares of thinning during 2007-2012. In 2009, total area of thinned forests was 590 thousand hectares (Fig.3-2).

In Japan, the “Japanese cedar (sugi) pollinosis” is acknowledged as a nationwide problem. The Forestry Agency is promoting the conversion of cedar forests to less-pollen cedar forests, through the development and expansion of less-pollen Japanese cedar variations.

Fig.3-1: Forest resources in Japan

Fig.3-2: Area of thinned forests in Japan

#### 1.4. Conservation of Forest Biodiversity

In October 2010, the COP10 to the Convention on Biological Diversity was held in Nagoya, Aichi prefecture. The Conference adopted the “Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020 and the Aichi Biodiversity Targets,” the global targets for the effective implementation of the Convention and the “Nagoya Protocol” on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from their Utilization.
The Forestry Agency is promoting conservation of forest biodiversity, through fixed point observation research, development of technique to comprehend forest vegetation, and promotion of those activities, in response to the proposals from the “Forest biodiversity Working Group” in 2009.

#### 1.5. Revision of forest planning system

The Forestry Agency is considering possible revision of forest planning system, including the introduction of “forest management plan” which will be developed by multiple forest owners for large part of forest area, and introduction of system to assure proper forest management.

#### 1.6. People’s participation in forest management

The number of civil organizations of “forest volunteers” reached 2,677 in 2009. These voluntary organizations have willingness to participate in voluntary forestry activities. Also, many private companies are interested in forest management and conservation, as a part of their corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities.

Many prefectural governments have introduced local taxation schemes exclusively used for forest management and conservation activities. Kochi prefecture introduced such system for the first time in 2003. As of 2010, the number of prefectures with similar schemes reached 30

The Forestry Agency is also promoting “environmental education in forests” through planting of seedling, thinning of forests, and observation of wild plants and animals. The Agency is also promoting the revitalization of “satoyama” (community forests in rural areas) as a field of experimental study on forest and forestry.

### 2. Forest Conservation and Disaster Control

#### 2.1. Conservation Forests

Under the Forest Act, forests providing particularly important public benefits, including securing water resource and preventing disasters, are designated as “conservation forests.” As of 2009, the total area of conservation forest reached 11.96 million hectares, or 48% of total forest area and 32% of total land area in Japan. In the “conservation forests,” general forest management is allowed with specific limitations for each type of conservation forests.

#### 2.2. Disaster control

In 2010, heavy rainfall in the rainy season caused severe natural disasters in mountainous regions, including large-scale landslide and avalanche. In response to such disasters, the Forestry Agency conducted forest conservation works through the development of disaster control facilities and forest stands.

#### 2.3. Pest, disease and wildlife control

The volume of pine wood damaged by pinewood nematode (Bursaphelenchus xylophilus) has declined to approximately one-fourth of its peak year of 1979, but such damage is still the worst among all forest pests and diseases in Japan. The Forestry Agency

Fig.3-3: Damaged volume of Quercus spp. trees by Platypus quecivorus
is implementing “preventive measures” through spread of chemicals and “combating measures” through logging and fumigating of damaged trees.

In 2009, damages of Quercus spp. trees caused by oak platypodid beetle (Platypus quercivorus) have been found in Tokyo, Aomori, Iwate, Gunma, and Shizuoka prefectures for the first time. The number of prefectures with those damage reached 29. The Forestry Agency is combating the beetle through logging and fumigating of damaged trees and development of preventive measures (Fig.3-3).

The major animal causing forest damage is deer, followed by bears. Approximately 70% of damaged forest areas are caused by deer. The Forestry Agency is addressing damage by deer through installation of preventive fences and control of the number of deer population.

### 3. International Cooperation

#### 3.1. Sates of World Forest

During 2000-2010, world forest area declined by 5.21 million hectares annually, according to FAO. In Africa and South America, 3.00 million hectares of forests decreased annually, while in Asia, 2.24 million hectares increased annually.

#### 3.2. Promotion of sustainable forest management

For the promotion of sustainable forest management, development of “criteria and indicators” has made progress through various international processes. Japan belongs to the “Montreal Process” in which developed countries other than European countries participate. In the 21 $ ^{st} $ Meeting of the Montreal Process, member countries shared experiences in the application of criteria and indicators.

Illegal logging substantially hinders the efforts for sustainable forest management. The Japanese Government is promoting international efforts to combat illegal logging under the fundamental principle “illegally harvested timber should not be used.”

The year 2011 is the “International Year of Forests.” The Forestry Agency will hold various ceremonies and symposia under the national theme of the Year, “Walk in Forests”

#### 3.3. Japan’s cooperation initiatives

Japan is promoting international cooperation for the sustainable forest management in developing countries, through bilateral and multilateral schemes including technical and financial assistance.

## Case study: Development of wood traceability system in Indonesia

Indonesia and Japan cooperatively developed wood traceability system as a measure to combat illegal logging. The system traces the flow of wood from logging site to plywood mills by use of "two-dimensional barcodes."

Photo: Putting “two-dimensional barcodes” on logged trunk.