Our company-owned forests in Japan ~650 sites across the country, from Hokkaido to Kyushu, amounting to an area ~188k ha in Japan. The area of company-owned planted forest (forest plantations) in Japan is ~77k hectares, constituting 41% of all company-owned forests. The Oji Group plants Sakhalin fir, larch, and other species in Hokkaido, and cedar, Japanese cypress, and other species in Honshu and southward. The average age of these trees are about 60 years and are approaching the time for harvesting. The Oji Group manages its forests sustainably by utilizing forest resources (harvesting mature trees and replanting trees to rejuvenate forests) while also continuing tending operation such as thinning (enhancing resources for future generations).
SGEC*1forest certification is a forest certification program*2 unique to Japan that is operated by the Sustainable Green Ecosystem Council (SGEC). The Oji Group began acquiring SGEC forest certification in December 2003 with the Kami-Inako mountain forest in Shizuoka. To date, we have acquired SGEC forest certification for 330 company-owned forests in Japan, excluding profit-sharing forests, with a total area of 173k hectares. It is the largest area of certified forests among those of private companies in Japan. In fiscal 2016, SGEC signed a mutual recognition agreement with the Program for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC*3), an international organization. This has made SGEC forest certification an internationally viable certification program.
Forests are a reproducible and sustainable resource that can be planted, grown, harvested and re-planted. The Oji Group has developed cyclic forest resource businesses, and promotes the effective utilization of forests as a comprehensive forestry business group, in order to harness the full potential of the wood it harvests, leaving none to waste.
In the company-owned forests in Japan, it takes approximately 60 years for seedlings to grow until it is harvested.
Final harvesting and replanting operations in approximately 500 ha of our forests are almost all performed by humans, requiring 13,000 workers every year just for planting and weeding. To reduce this workload, we transport seedlings using drones, plant fast-growing Chinese firs that are expected to reduce the frequency for weeding must be done and conduct weed control tests on cover crops to suppress weeds.
In the Kamiinako Company-owned forest (Shizuoka Prefecture), we planted the Chinese fir “Cunninghamia” as a trial which is an exotic species native of China (introduced in the Edo period (1603-1868)). Chinese fir promises to have the following effects;
