*3.3. Activities and Management Conditions of the FPCs Surveyed* 3.3.1. Overview

Table 1 presents basic information on the surveyed FPCs. With the exception of two cases, the FPCs were established after the Modernization Act in 1966. The average area owned was approximately 68 ha. In terms of forest type, most of the lands that the FPCs owned were planted forests of Japanese cedar. Each FPC's number of members was less than 100 and all FPCs had experienced a decline in membership. A large part of the forests managed by FPCs D, F, and G had been designated as forest reserves, which are important to local environmental conservation and water cultivation.

### 3.3.2. Tending Activities

Table 2 shows that eight of the nine FPC cases had conducted some activity to tend to planted forests in the few years before the surveys were conducted. Of these eight, six FPCs (A, B, D, E, F, and H) had operations using their own labor. Most of the thinning operations had been entrusted to other forest management bodies, such as FOCs; only FPC A had their own work crews to conduct thinning operations. Four FPCs (B, D, F, and G) received subsidies from the prefecture or cities for their tending operations.


**Table 2.** Forest management activities among the FPCs surveyed.

(adopted from [24]).
