type:Article

This paper examines the Okukinu Super Forest Road construction plan, which was one of 23 proposals submitted in 1970 by the Forest Development Corporation, an affiliated organization of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, and the nature conservation movement against it. The original plan for the construction of the Super Rindou was aimed at building a tourist road using the construction of a forest road as a cover. The design of the Okukinu Super Rindou was to run from Kotoku, Nikko City, Tochigi Prefecture in Nikko National Park to Kawamata Onsen through the old Sanno Forest Road; and to repair the road from Kawamata Onsen to Meotobuchi, and to develop a mountain trail into a mountain road from Meotobuchi to Hatcho-no-Yu, and a new mountain road was to be constructed from Hatcho-no-Yu through the area around Kinunuma to Oshimizu, Katashina Village, Gunma Prefecture. Between 1971 and 1981, nature conservation groups in Tochigi and Gunma prefectures campaigned strongly to halt the construction of the road, especially because it included a nature conservation area between Hatcho-no-Yu and Oshimizu. However, in 1981, the Environment Agency issued a new proposal in response to the proposed Super Forest Road. The proposal was to accept some of the opposition's demands to stop the construction of the road, and to disallow the Hatcho-no-Yu-Oshimizu Road as a tourist road. On the other hand, it was to accept the intention of the Forest Development Corporation to allow the road to be built as a forest road. The construction work on the Hatcho-no-Yu-Oshimizu Road has resumed, but the nature conservation groups continued to oppose the Super Forest Road construction plan, despite the government's approval. In 1991, the Hatcho-no-Yu-Oshimizu Road was completed, and the opposition movement ended. However, the road is not used as a tourist road and is left as a forest road with little function. The campaign against the Super Forest Road construction plan played a major role in avoiding significant destruction of the natural environment around the road by preventing the road from being used as a tourist road.