Forest management approaches vary according to the needs of individual municipalities with unique geographic conditions and local social contexts. Accordingly, there are two types of subsidies: a unified national subsidy and a prefecture-level subsidy, mainly from forest environmental taxes. The latter is a local tax. Our focus is on examining forest management using these two types of taxes (i.e., central and prefecture-level) and their correlations with social and natural environmental factors. In this paper, we examine the spatial distribution of management areas using subsidies from the central government, the Forestry Agency of Japan, and prefectural forest environmental taxes in Ishikawa. In concrete terms, the spatial correlations of the management areas under two tax schemes are compared with the natural hazard areas (as a natural environmental factor) and areas with high aging rates (as a social factor). The results are tested to see whether the correlations of areas with the two factors are significant, to examine whether the taxes are used for areas with natural and social needs. From the result, positive correlations are identified between the distribution of management areas and natural hazard areas and between the distribution of management areas and areas with high aging rates.
Owing to the trend of the decreasing size of business in the Japanese forestry sector, the management of the forestland has involved serious reduction in forestry workers. Most parts of trees in forest plantations in Japan need to be harvested. Sustainable forest management issues, including tending and periodic thinning, need to be tackled over several generations. In mountainous forestlands and other forest areas that are difficult to access, most forest owners and forest associations are no longer able to maintain forestlands as their own businesses; forest management in those regions depends on support from national and regional governments.
The need for forest management differs among Japanese regions because their physical, geographical, and social contexts differ. Prefectures implement their forest policies in the context of their individual regions. The forest environmental tax is a policy option for sustainable management in individual prefectures. Forest management support from the prefectures depends on the general revenue resources of the prefectures. In addition to general revenue resources, revenue from the forest environmental tax in each prefecture is used for forest management. Kochi Prefecture introduced the first forest environmental tax in 2003, and 33 prefectures have now introduced the tax, not including urban prefectures such as Tokyo. Due to a shortage of revenue resources, it is necessary to use revenue resources effectively to deal with specific regional issues.
The forest environmental tax can be regarded as an institution of the Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) [
Because the tax system is at the prefecture level, prefectures are not necessarily uniform in their application of the system. A common feature of the forest environmental tax at the prefectural level is that taxpayers are frequently unaware of the tax, because of the limited amount (frequently 500 yen per annum) and the mode of payment (i.e., it is collected with the water usage fees or residence taxes). Almost all residents within the prefectures are obliged to pay these forest environmental taxes, except for certain urban prefectures such as Tokyo and Osaka, where they do not have such systems.
Because most taxpayers are unaware of their existence, the purpose and operations relating to the use of this tax money are not thoroughly examined from our perspectives based on GIS data. Are the taxes used in areas in urgent need of forest management, consistent with the scheme’s original design? If so, which social or natural factors play a larger role?
As with many other public budget programs, management areas are distributed unevenly and without strict rules and standards. The areas are selected through negotiation between forest owners and forest cooperatives. Dialogues are critical because the main management areas under the forest environmental tax are artificial forests owned by private owners. The decisions of negotiations are outcomes of plans, lobbying, and prioritization. As a result, the decisions of management areas may be unequally distributed or even biased within a certain prefecture.
Other factors that may cause unequal distribution of management areas are the characteristics of forest cooperatives with different scales of budget and organizational structures. Negotiations between forest cooperatives and forest owners and budget sizes and organization structures of forest cooperatives are social factors that affect the distribution of forest management areas. Physical environmental factors of forest areas include the densities of trees, slopes, and accessibilities, such as existing roads. Because of these factors, the prefectures and municipalities have difficulty in implementing forest management equally in the forest area of each prefecture.
Under the influence of social and physical environmental factors, forest management areas under the forest environmental tax may be unevenly distributed. An evaluation of the use of the forest environmental tax is not conducted regarding the effective use of the tax for the whole area of a prefecture. The forest management areas that are selected by forest cooperatives in a bottom-up manner can be distributed in high risk areas of natural disaster or areas with high aging rates and few human resources for forestry.
When these areas do not overlap, there is a risk that forest management is implemented in areas that are not consistent with the goals of the introduction of the tax in each prefecture. Consequently, comparisons of the distribution of forest management areas by the tax and the distribution of high risk areas of natural disasters or population can contribute to evaluations of the effectiveness of the use of the tax.
The results of the comparative analysis can be used to examine the directions of forestry policies and the forest environmental tax. Even if it is difficult to evenly allocate forest management areas in a prefecture, management areas can be allocated in areas with a high risk of natural disaster or high aging rate and a lack of the required management. Forest management under the forest environmental tax needs to be implemented to sustainably acknowledge services from forestlands, to maximize such services, and to reduce the risk of natural hazard based on scientific evaluation of the use of the tax.
In this research, forest management areas under the forest environmental tax in Ishikawa prefecture are examined. The prefecture includes a peninsula, and mountainous areas are located in the north and southeast part of the prefecture (Figure
Distribution of forest areas in the Ishikawa prefecture.
Since 2007, the forest environmental tax has been used in the Ishikawa prefecture, and forest management and educational activities have been implemented using revenue from the tax. Ishikawa has areas with different aging rates (Table
Forest area and population of Noto and Kanazawa-Kaga-Hakusan region.
Forest areas (100 ha) | (a) Forest environment conservation areas (ha) | (b) Management areas by the forest environmental tax (ha) | (a) + (b) (ha) | Disaster risk areas in forest areas (100 ha) | Population (000) | Rate of population over 65 (%) | Rate of forest area (%) | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Noto | 1,513 | 1,237 | 5,988 | 7,224 | 373.4 | 211.3 | 33.6 | 76.5 |
Kanazawa-Kaga-Hakusan | 1,572 | 1,744 | 3,028 | 4,772 | 368.1 | 956.7 | 21.3 | 71.2 |
| ||||||||
Total | 3,085 | 2,981 | 9,015 | 11,996 | 741.5 | 1,168.0 | ||
| ||||||||
Average | 23.5 | 73.7 |
In the Ishikawa prefecture, there are two types of government supported forest management approaches (Table
Forest area and population of the Noto and Kanazawa-Kaga-Hakusan region.
Main financial resource | Operating entity | Main aims | Obligation to make management plan | Necessity to make agreement with local governments | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Forest management mainly with the forest environmental tax | Fund of forest environmental tax | Prefecture, municipality, forest cooperative & NPO | Conservation of multiple functions of forests & management of disadvantaged forests | — | ○ |
| |||||
Forest environment conservation operation | Subsidies from central government, Forestry Agency | Prefecture, municipality, forest cooperative, NPO, forest owner & contractor of management | Conservation of multiple functions of forest & cost reduction of forestry | ○ | — |
There are differences between the two types of management. For example, the aims of forest environment conservation operations include cost reduction of forestry, while the aims of forest management using the forest environmental tax include implementing management of disadvantaged forestlands. An example of a disadvantaged forestland is one with a steep gradient where the management cost is relatively high. The organizations primarily responsible for the former operations in the Ishikawa prefecture are the forestry cooperatives and other forestry organizations, and those responsible for the latter management are the forestry cooperatives. Regarding the required intensity of thinning, basically more than 20% of trees in the site are thinned in the forest environment conservation operations, while more than 40% of them are thinned in the forest management using the forest environmental tax. Selections of operations and management areas depend on the decision of the organizations. The prefecture does not select the areas that will be managed by the forestry cooperatives and other forestry organizations in a top-down manner. The management areas are selected based on a point in common between the two types of management.
We apply the following four data sets for the analysis: (1) areas under forest management operations, (2) forest areas, (3) disaster risk areas, and (4) population age over 65 years. Explanations of the four data sets are given below.
Data sets for areas under forest management operation were provided by Ishikawa prefecture [
To analyze forest areas, the land use grid data provided by the Land, Infrastructure and Transportation Ministry (MLIT) [
The data for disaster risk areas provided by the MLIT [
Census data for the year 2010 [
In this section, we review the results from the municipality and smaller microscale (with the unit of Oaza).
We capture the correlation of forest environment conservation operations and forest management areas with the forest environmental tax and disaster risk area. From the results, the areas with the two types of management have correlations of 0.43 with the disaster risks area, which is a relatively weak correlation (Figure
Correlation of government supported forest management areas and disaster risk areas (unit: microlevel Oaza).
When the individual management areas are examined, the correlation is 0.36 for forest environment conservation areas and 0.38 for forest management areas with the forest environmental tax. These correlation coefficients show that the two schemes selected different areas, resulting in a higher correlation of the total areas of both management areas with disaster risk areas.
In this research, we use the data of total forest areas. As the preliminary step, relationships between distribution of the two types of the management areas and forest areas are examined. The results show that the certain amount of forest management areas can be situated in individual Oaza that includes disaster risk areas. However, the main type of trees in individual Oaza is not considered because of the data limitation. In the future research, the main type of trees in individual Oaza will be detected by remotely sensed data with high resolution, and the detailed relationships between distribution of the two types of the management areas and forest areas with each type of trees in microlevel Oaza will be examined.
Next, we examine the ratio of forest areas with the two management schemes and their correlations with the proportion of residents over the age of 65 in each unit of Oaza. The resulting correlation is 0.16. We examine the two schemes individually, but the results indicate lower correlations, below 0.16. The results suggest weaker correlations with residents over the age of 65 in each unit of Oaza and the two schemes.
We apply the same analysis with the same indicators to the scale of municipalities. The correlation with forest management areas under the two schemes with disaster risk areas was 0.76, a high positive correlation (Figure
Correlation of government supported forest management areas and disaster risk areas (unit: municipality).
In the analysis of the microscale, if Oaza has forest areas with disaster risk and neighboring Oaza have the forest management areas, those relationships of the Oaza cannot be reflected to the correlation between the distribution of the high risk areas of natural disasters and the management areas, even if those management areas can contribute to reduction of disaster risk in the Oaza. That is the cause of the stronger correlation in municipality level. The boundaries of municipalities based on the borders of watersheds and parts of the management areas in a municipality can be situated near the high risk areas of natural disasters, and those management areas are not precisely overlapped with the high risk areas but they can contribute to reduction of the disaster risk in the municipality.
In the following step, we examine the ratio of forest areas to the two management schemes and their correlations with the proportion of residents over the age of 65 in each unit of the municipality. The resulting correlation is 0.46, which is a weaker correlation. We examine the areas of the two schemes individually, and the results indicate correlations of −0.14 for forest environment conservation operations and 0.63 for forest management areas with the forest environmental tax (Figure
Correlation of the proportion of government supported forest management areas and the rate of population over 65 (unit: municipality).
This result implies that forest management areas with the forest environmental tax were implemented with a relatively high concentration in areas with high proportions of the population over the age of 65. The cause of the different correlations of the forest management areas by the tax and the forest environment conservation areas with the proportion of residents over the age of 65 can be related to the difference in the schemes of the two types of the management (Table
We will discuss the reason for larger correlations at the municipality level than at the microlevel of Oaza in Section
The results for the two schemes showed higher correlations at the municipality level than at the micro-Oaza level for residents over 65. Regarding disaster risk areas, correlations were found at both the micro-Oaza and municipality levels. The correlations of both schemes with the disaster risk areas imply that bottom-up decisions in the selection of forest management areas mainly by the forest cooperatives were instrumental in managing areas for disaster prevention.
The municipality level may be the appropriate level to understand the correlation of the rate of forest management area with the rate of people who are related to forest management. Their places of residence often do not correspond to Oaza with the management areas on a one-to-one basis, but they do correspond to municipalities. To analyze the spatial correlation of the distribution of the human resources of forestry and the forest management area with the environmental tax, the municipality level may well be more appropriate than the Oaza level. In this paper, the correlation of the rate of people who are over 65 years with the rate of the forest management area was examined at the municipality level, and a relatively strong and positive correlation was identified.
As a general trend, it was noted that the forest environment management schemes were implemented for areas with a relatively high proportion of the population over 65 years; it is suggested that the scheme potentially contributed to areas with less workforce (and less economic activity) in forestry. In other words, the forest environment conservation scheme was conducted in areas with more social need, in addition to disaster risk areas that need disaster prevention.
In future research, the specific selection processes for forest areas managed by forestry cooperatives need to be investigated. Through an understanding of these processes, methods to lead forest cooperatives to select appropriate areas that need management via the environmental tax can be identified. The variables (e.g., ratio of plantation area, tree types, decreasing ratio of population) that can be related to the distribution of the management areas will be identified based on that investigation and multivariate analysis. As mentioned in Section
Local governments are required to manage forestry cooperatives to effectively use revenue from the forest environmental tax, and they need to know the conditions for appropriate selection of forest cooperatives in management areas.
The authors declare that there are no competing interests regarding the publication of this paper.
This work was supported by the MEXT, KAKENHI