Forests for People

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Progressive and sustainable practices

in commercial forest management

Akito Kataoka, Sumitomo Forestry, Japan

umitomo Forestry is a private sector corporation headquar-

tered in Tokyo, Japan, engaged in the worldwide supply,

distribution and sale of a wide range of wood products and

building materials for housing construction, based on a vertical

integration business model. In Japan, the company is ranked

number one in terms of the volume of products it handles.

The origin of the company dates back to 1691, when a family named

Sumitomo started to operate a copper mine in a Government-owned

forest in Besshi Village, Shikoku Island. By the 1880s, the copper

mining and smelting operation had polluted the land, rendering it

completely bare in some areas. The best-known case of such pollution

during the same time period occurred in Ashio copper mine in Tochigi

Prefecture. Teigo Iba, then manager in charge of the Besshi area of

the company and later to become its Director General, decided to

restore the forest land to its original lush condition, and implemented

an ambitious project of planting one million seedlings every year. A

decade later, the number was increased to 2.4 million per

year. This was the origin of Sumitomo Forestry’s sustain-

able forest management practice.

Sumitomo Forestry soon became the first private

enterprise in Japan to design and execute Forest

Operation Plans. Although the initiative came from

the Government’s forestry policy, the company studied

European forestry management programmes and expe-

riences and built a system of its own. Since then, we

have accumulated extensive expertise in sustainable

forestry management.

At the start of the 20th century, Sumitomo Forestry

expanded its ownership of forest land in Kyushu and

Hokkaido Islands. Currently, the company owns

forest land in four locations throughout Japan, but

is not the largest owner as the land holdings of the

major pulp and paper manufacturers and the national

Operations of Sumitomo Forestry Group

Source: Sumitomo Forestry