EGN NEWS DESK
Oji Holdings, Japan’s main paper maker, owns and manages 635,000 hectares of forests throughout the globe. Forest assets — for wooden, paper and wood-derived supplies or for biomass energy technology — are attracting elevated consideration as sustainable assets. However, their sustainability hinges on how they’re utilized and managed.Oji, who has been planting timber for 100 years,, locations forests on the core of its enterprise and engages in a spread of actions geared toward sustaining wholesome forests and enhancing the well-being of the folks concerned in its forest administration initiatives throughout the globe. Additionally, it strives to precisely assess the multifaceted worth of forests and leverage them to spice up its general worth.
In a current interview with The Japan Times, Hiromi Yamamoto, manager of Oji’s Forest Value-Creation and Promotion Department, mentioned the entire variety of workers engaged in afforestation actions overseas is 13,000, and the corporate has established manufacturing services in 23 nations.
Many of the corporate’s forests are situated in distant areas the place social providers and infrastructure are sometimes restricted. “In response, we have now been offering well being checkups in communities of those areas, primarily in Southeast Asian nations. To date, a complete of three,000 folks in Vietnam and 5,500 in Indonesia have benefited from this initiative,” Yamamoto mentioned.
In the sector of training, the corporate supplies environmental teaching programs in Japan and overseas. Since 2004, Oji has supplied a summer season program for elementary college youngsters to go to its forests and interact in hands-on actions in Japan. “In New Zealand, we have now performed environmental teaching programs at colleges since 2008, with over 10,000 college students taking part up to now. Similarly, our packages supplied in Brazil have been attended by 4,300 college students over the previous three years,” Yamamoto mentioned.
Oji supplies assist for native companies, together with farmers and beekeepers, in addition to for infrastructure.
It can also be participating with stakeholders from exterior Japan in an effort to quantify the values of forests. One instance of that is its collaboration with Pivotal, a U.Ok.-based startup that gives the excellent evaluation of biodiversity by utilizing AI which is made doable by means of drones, cameras, acoustic sensors and environmental DNA and different applied sciences. “This is the primary try of this type of biodiversity analysis in Japan. In Europe, one of these expertise, which is named ‘nature tech,’ is gaining momentum. In this context, we sought a accomplice to collaborate with and recognized Pivotal as a possible accomplice,” Yamamoto mentioned.
Monitoring survey in Sarufutsu forest by Pivotal and Oji HD
| Oji Holdings
One of the aims of this collaboration is to investigate pure areas in Japan and current the findings to the world. It is necessary to acknowledge that nature shouldn’t be uniform. The optimum method to conserving and nurturing pure assets varies by place, influenced by elements resembling local weather, geography and historical past.
“In Europe, forest conservation requires a technique of restoration from overuse. In Japan, the place forests are typically underused, forests should be managed by adequately utilizing forest assets,” Yamamoto mentioned.
Approximately 60% of the entire forest space in Japan is pure, although not all of it’s pristine. There are forests, sometimes called satoyama, which were properly maintained by way of human interventions resembling using bamboo and wooden for constructing and gas. However, a lot of them at the moment are deserted. Some of the man-made forests planted with timber timber, resembling cedar and cypress, have additionally been left untouched as a result of decline in timber manufacturing. This shouldn’t be solely a waste of assets but additionally poses a possible threat as a result of the soil in these uncared for forests is mostly topic to degradation on account of inadequate daylight and a scarcity of various vegetation and creatures.
Field survey with Pivotal, putting in cameras and audio sensors
| Oji Holdings
Cutting down timber could also be dangerous to nature in a single place, but be a method to preserve it in one other. Yamamoto emphasised the necessity to scientifically and quantitatively analyze the state of Japan’s forests, and to find out which measures are the best in conserving nature in Japan.
“The efforts to quantify nature and to make use of the outcome to preserve or regenerate nature ought to are available in one bundle. In the close to future, when pure capital turns into a part of monetary belongings within the accounting commonplace, turning the results of such efforts into pure capital credit will result in a rise in our asset worth,” she mentioned.
However, she warned that this shift to pure capital accounting must occur rapidly as a result of the speed of pure degradation is essential. To speed up change, promote the advantages of forests and improve the presence of forest-related industries at worldwide conferences, Oji based the International Sustainable Forestry Coalition in September 2023 with like-minded corporations from world wide and is working with different member corporations to attain its mission of “serving to society construct a nature-positive bioeconomy by making the absolute best use of forests and forest merchandise.” This accords with Oji’s company objective: “Grow and handle the sustainable forest, develop and ship the merchandise from renewable forest, and Oji will deliver this world a brighter future full of hope.”
