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This book about forest policy studies is based on transcriptions of recorded forest policy lectures at the University of Tokyo. The oral lecture format on which the text is based makes for vivid and easy-to-understand content.
 
Forest policy studies is an academic field concerned with how people live in and with forests. My particular focus is on livelihoods and lifestyles and for that reason I tend to emphasize economic perspectives. Still, the relationships and interactions among people living in and with forests are equally important, meaning perspectives in social science, politics, and history are also needed. Additionally, in today’s world, administrative and legal factors in the relationships among people must also be taken into consideration. I have started here by introducing academic fields and methods of analyses covering such subjects as: forests, their lumber and non-timber forest products, role in environmental conservation, such as headwater conservation and as bulwarks against mountain disasters, their value as tourist attractions, and, finally, the social systems of people living in and involved with forests, tree groves, and mountains.
 
We have come to a point where we need to think of how our highly developed human society can come to terms with the global environment. The recent emphasis on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is a part of this. And to achieve the SDGs, we must rethink the relationship between forests and humans. In this context, forest policy studies are more important than ever.
 
Forestry policy is about the relationship between forests and people. This book starts out by examining the situation of forests around the world. My perspective is based on a U-shape hypothesis which supposes that the diminishing of the world’s forests, particularly in the tropics, will gradually reverses course with economic development and eventually start increasing.
 
Next, we look into forestland ownership which plays an important role in the changing landscape of the world’s forests. In this book, readers will learn how such ownership practices took hold in Japan from the Meiji era on.
 
From there we look back on the postwar trends in lumber by examining supply and demand curves and considering how changes in income were linked to these fluctuations to clarify how these postwar changes in demands were met with domestic and imported lumber.
 
We then examine trends in supply and demand from the perspective of economic principles, refer them to fundamental theories of welfare economics, and demonstrate why government involvement in forests and forestry is necessary, in other words, why markets fail. I also talk about the fact that it takes a long time for forests to grow and because of this a temporal axis is needed as well in allocating resources. Finally, I talk about forestry legislation and how clearly defining rights and the costs of transactions is, in a sense, essential for optimal resource allocation.
 

(Written by NAGATA Shin, Project Professor, Asian Natural Environmental Science Center / Emeritus Professor, Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences / 2019)