If these plantations are to produce the size and quality of logs that the Grand Shrine of Ise needs over the centuries to replace all of the associated Shrines every twenty years, the amount of organic material that is withdrawn from the soil must be balanced with an equal amount of organic material being allowed to return to the soil, some of which must be large whole trees. This is not now happening and has not happened for at least a century or more. In addition, after conversations with Dr. Murao, Chairman, Resources Programme and World Forestry at the University of Ehime, Japan, it seems clear that fires were once a vital part of the forest's cycle at Kiso Fukushima. The existence of early fires would explain the wide spacing among the old-growth Japanese cypress that are so valued for the reconstruction of the Grand Shrine. It's therefore reasonable to assume that, if the Grand Shrine is to have trees of comparable value into the future, fire must be reintroduced into the care of the plantation.
Fire does things to a forest or a plantation that management without fire can never do.
Despite the fact that the original forest of Kiso Fukushima is today a plantation does not in any way detract from the Shinto Priests' intentions of maintaining a sustainable forest into the future for the future. And I, for one, am convinced that society can, if it so chooses, heal the forests of the world, as the Shinto Priests are trying to heal theirs. To do so, however, society will need the help of its children. Children can plant a forest because they don't know what a forest is, or how it should look, or how it should behave, or what it's good for. Children have minds that are simply open to the wonder of planting the idea of a forest with each tree or tree seed they plant.