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From Timber to Tourism: Recommoditizing the Japanese Forest
Author(s) -
Knight John
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
development and change
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.267
H-Index - 93
eISSN - 1467-7660
pISSN - 0012-155X
DOI - 10.1111/1467-7660.00157
Subject(s) - tourism , recreation , resource (disambiguation) , geography , forest management , agroforestry , forestry , natural resource economics , business , environmental protection , ecology , economics , environmental science , archaeology , computer network , computer science , biology
Timber plantations make up nearly half the Japanese forest area. However, in recent decades domestic timber has been displaced by imports. The decline of Japanese forestry forms the background to the emergence of forest tourism whereby domestic forests become important sites for the recreational leisure of Japan’s urban middle class. This article describes the ways in which the Japanese forest is exploited as a tourist resource, and examines the problems that arise in this process of recommoditizing a timber forest into a tourist forest.