On the Relationship Between the Revitalizing of Smaller Forest Households and Forest Owners' Cooperative Activities

Forest owners should maintain forests in good healthy conditions while utilizing their resources. Otherwise the forest cannot perform its economic and environmental role. However in the recent recession it has been impossible for individual forest households to fully realize the forest's full potential. It is therefore necessary to construct a local forestry sysytem which integrates local forestry, timber distribution and forest production processes. Forest owner's cooperatives are expected to be the organizers of local forestry system because they conduct various economic projects, including forest management, consulting, marketing, purchasing and financing. Marketing projects have the potential to open new timber markets for smaller forest households. The local forestry system enlarges timber markets for smaller forest households. It affects income by increasing the volume of timber handled and reducing the cost of timber production and distribution. It is thought that by increasing the volume handled by forest owners' cooperatives, not only the volume of local timber production would increase but activities of smaller forest households would be revitalized. In this paper, the relationships between the revitalization of smaller forest households and the activities of forest owners' cooperatives are analyzed by means of a questionnaire given to members of 21 forest owners' cooperatives in Kumamoto and Oita prefectures. From the results it is concluded that in order to revitalize forest management it is necessary to increase the dealing volume quantity of the marketing project, and to develop cooperatives through consolidation. (1) The greatest number of forest households properties were in the 1ha to 5ha category, representing 34 % of responding households, followed by 5ha to 10ha (20 %), 10ha to 20 ha (17 %), and 20ha to 50ha (11 %). The total of 5 ha to 50 ha represents 48 % of households, but only 6 % in Kyushu where holdings were larger than average. There is much more artifical forest than natural forest in most holdings, and most households have forest areas that require thinning. (2) Forest households actively plant, weed and prune, but households belonging to more active forest owners' cooperatives perform thinning more frequently. (3) There was a close relationship between timber sales of forest households and the activities of forest cooperatives. (i) 28 % of households belonging to the most active cooperatives with a dealing volume of more than 20,000 m^3 perform regeneration cutting. Under 3,000 m^3 it is only a few percent. (ii) 80 - 90 % of housel~olds performed thinning during the last 4 or 5 years. There were few differences between active cooperatives and less active once. However most forest households in the active group sold thinned logs at a high rate, whereas many in the less active group did not sell They only carried out felling or used the timber for private purposes. (iii) When money was needed, the majority of households in the active group would sell timber, compared with only 20 % of the less active group. (iv) The majority of the active group prefer to sell their timber to forest owners' cooperatives. Most of the less active group had no clear idea of markets for their timber. (4) Smaller forest households belonging to the cooperatives dealing with timber volume are very interested in timber production. These cooperatives have more than 10,000 ha owned by financial members, investments of more than 40 million yen, and more than ten full time officers and staff. Many other cooperatives have few staff and less forest property, both obstacles to the growth of their potential business. It is necessary to develop a management structure and the forest property owned by members in order to revitalize the activities of forest owners' cooperatives and smaller forest households. Therefore the consolidation of forest owners' cooperatives is the most realistic and steady method available to develop cooperati