**1. Introduction**

In Japan, planted forests cover 10 million ha or approximately 40% of the 25 million ha of the forest area, of which 65% are privately owned [1]. The planted forest resources, it is mainly converted from primarily broadleaf forests to conifer forests Japanese Cedar (*Cryptomeria japonica*) and Japanese Cypress (*Chamaecyparis obtusa*), which were established after World War II have matured; half of them are over 50 years old and are now in their utilization period. Notably, the amount of timber produced increased from 15.1 million m3 in 2002 to 31.2 million m3 in 2020 [1]. However, the Forestry Agency has found that the log supply from clearcutting is approximately 40% of the growing volume of planted forests accumulated, indicating that the resource must be utilized more efficiently.

The Japanese government has promoted forestry promotion policies, including the revision of the Forestry Basic Law in 1964, in response to the declining profitability of the domestic forestry industry against the backdrop of the strong yen and increasing timber imports [2]. Aggregating small-scale forest stands have been promoted as a policy measure to improve operational efficiency and reduce timber production cost in Japan, where the majority of forest owners are small-scale private forest owners (PFOs) [3]. However, as planted forests matured and entered the harvesting stage, further aggregation of forest

**Citation:** Onda, N.; Ochi, S.; Tsuzuki, N. Examination of Social Factors Affecting Private Forest Owners' Future Intentions for Forest Management in Miyazaki Prefecture: A Comparison of Regional Characteristics by Forest Ownership Size. *Forests* **2023**, *14*, 309. https:// doi.org/10.3390/f14020309

Academic Editor: Andrej Ficko

Received: 23 December 2022 Revised: 29 January 2023 Accepted: 30 January 2023 Published: 4 February 2023

**Copyright:** © 2023 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/).

management was required. In 2019, the Forestry Agency has started a "New Scheme of Forest Management" (NSFM) to solve the following problems: the low willingness of PFOs to manage their forests, the disparity between the intentions of PFOs and forestry managers to expand the scale of their operations, the slow introduction of road network maintenance and high-performance machinery, and low productivity. The small-scale ownership of forest conditions is a major obstacle to efficient timber production, as 74% of forest areas owned by PFOs are less than 5 ha [4]. The NSFM ensures the following: (1) A growth industry is compatible with proper forest management, (2) aggregation of forest management rights, not including ownership, to highly motivated and sustainable forestry enterprises, and (3) improvement conditions for aggregation of forest management [4]. As part of this effort, in 2018, the government enacted a Forest Management Law to achieve effective timber production and appropriate forest management by aggregating forest management rights. Specifically, this law stipulates that PFOs must manage their own forests and are responsible for harvesting, silviculture, and nursery at the appropriate times. It also allows PFOs to entrust forest management to the municipality in accordance with PFOs' future intentions. Forests suitable for forestry management are re-entrusted to forestry enterprises from the municipality according to their economic values, whereas the municipality manages those that are unsuitable. Thus, the NSFM is based on PFOs' willingness to manage their forests in the future, and municipalities survey PFOs' intentions to ascertain their willingness to do so. The survey selection criteria included planted forest owners without a forest management plan and forest management that had not been implemented for the past decade.

The Forest Environment Transfer Tax (FETT) allocation began in 2019 in Japan as a financial resource for municipalities and prefectures that will be directly responsible for NSFM. The FETT amount allocated to municipalities is calculated as follows: 50%, 20%, and 30% of the municipality allocations are based on the area of private forest plantations, forestry worker population, and municipality population, respectively. The area of privately planted forest is corrected according to the forest area ratio, with 1.5 for municipalities with a forest area ratio of 85% or more and 1.3 for municipalities with a forest area ratio of 75% or more but less than 85%. Notably, the criteria for determining the allocation amount deviate from the system's intention [5]. As FETT has only been operational for a limited time, system evaluation is a future concern. However, the actual situation regarding tax utilization is being assessed for prefectures [6] and large cities [7], prefectural support for municipalities [8,9], urban–rural partnerships [10]. In addition, Ishizaki et al. [11] mentioned the increased workload of municipal officials on the NSFM and the FETT administration.

The Forest Management Law, which directs the future management of the PFOs' forest according to the PFOs' willingness, may promote immediate timber production and forest improvement. However, because the transfer of rights related to the property rights of PFOs must be done cautiously, the development of PFOs willing to manage their forests must be balanced with the smooth aggregating forest management rights from PFOs unwilling to manage their forests. Clarifying the factors that influence future management intentions is thus necessary when considering the maintenance or enhancement of PFOs' willingness to forest management.

Effective forest policy implementation requires identifying the determinants of PFOs' decisions [12] and developing forest policies that can influence PFOs' behaviors [13]. Forest owner typologies are being utilized to develop a method for identifying forest owner values [14]. The typology studies are mostly based on ownership objectives [15]. Previous studies noted that forest owners could be divided into five types: "economist," "multiobjective owner," "recreationist," "self-employed," and "passive owner," based on the purpose of their forest ownership [12,13]. Boon et al. [12] classified the Danish PFOs into three types: "classic owner," "hobby owner," and "indifferent farmer" based on a survey of PFOs' interest in forests. Ingemarson et al. [13] classified the Swedish PFOs into five types: "traditionalist," "economist," "conservationist," "passive," and "multiobjective," according to the purpose of ownership, and showed differences in the forest ownership size, frequency

of visits to their own forest, and presence of successors. Ficko and Boncina [15] classified PFOs as "materialists" and "nonmaterialists". On the other hand, some studies categorized PFOs focused on their forest management behaviors. The willingness of landowners to harvest woody biomass as a characteristic of woody biomass suppliers has been noted as a factor of ownership purpose, owned forest size, tree species structure and composition, and demographics in the southern United States [16]. In contrast to these previous studies, an approach that categorizes PFOs according to their expressed future intention for their forest management and who identifies the underlying factors that can contribute to their decision-making process is required to clarify the issues involved in the NSFM, Japan.

The declining willingness of PFOs to forest management has been identified as a problem [17], with multiple factors influencing PFOs' management behaviors in Japan. Considering the PFOs' forest status, these factors included forest ownership size [18], especially planted forest size, and the distance between the residence and owned forest [19,20]. For PFOs' perceptions and management behaviors, PFOs' awareness of forests as property [21], the awareness of owned forest boundaries [22], perception of planted forest locations [19,20], and registration status [19,22] are noted. PFOs' attributes were mentioned in terms of age [23], occupation [24], and the existence of successors [24]. In addition, social relationships in local communities [25], membership in a forest owners' cooperative (FOC) [22], deteriorated functioning of FOC's regional organizations [26], and residence or absence in the village have been identified as factors influencing the owner–local community relationship [20]. Since the late 1990s, neglecting reforest postharvest has emerged as a problem resulting from PFOs' poor forest management practices [27]. Low prices of standing timber as economic factors [28] and the failure to continue the management of forest divisions upon contract expiration as institutional factors contribute to reforest abandonment [29]. Indicated by these results are the factors that define PFOs' management behaviors and their perception of forests. However, studies on future management intentions are limited. Hayashi et al. [24] mentioned regional differences in the factors that influence PFOs' willingness to sell, as well as occupation and successors. Kushiro and Ito [30] described that many PFOs, notably absentee village owners, want to disengage from forest management despite acknowledging the necessity of continuing forest management for reasons including uncertainty of inheritance, loss of boundary, and economic evaluation.

This study aimed to identify the socioeconomic factors affecting the future intention for forest management by classifying the PFOs' future intentions.

#### **2. Methodology**

*2.1. Study Site*

The study survey was conducted in Miyazaki Prefecture, which ranks third in Japan for timber production (1,879 thousand m3) and first for cedar production (1739 thousand m3) [31]. Small-scale PFOs dominate southern Miyazaki Prefecture, whereas large-scale PFOs dominate northern Miyazaki Prefecture, indicating regional variations. Southern PFOs in this prefecture have a low willingness to manage their forests [32]. In addition, the identifying PFOs and their confirming their rights is an obstacle to timber production in the southern region [33,34].

In this study, considering the difference in the forest ownership scale [35], Kunitomi Town (hereafter Kunitomi) was selected as the study site from the southern part (primarily small-scale PFOs), and Kitakata district in Nobeoka City (hereafter Kitakata) (Figure 1) from the northern part (mainly large-scale PFOs) (Figure 2).

Kunitomi is a suburban area adjacent to Miyazaki City, the capital city of Miyazaki Prefecture, with a population of 18,027 [35], an area of 130.6 km2, and a forest area of 7736 ha (59.2% forest area) [36]. Ownership of less than 5 ha accounts for 98.8% [37]. Former Kitakata Town merged with Nobeoka City in 2006 and became a part of Nobeoka City. The population is 3321 [38], with an area of 200.1 km2, forest areas of 17,770 ha, and a forest area ratio of 88.4% [36].

**Figure 1.** Study site.

**Figure 2.** Proportion of forest ownership scale [34].

#### *2.2. Method and Data Collection*

All PFOs who belonged to FOC in both regions were surveyed using questionnaires to collect data. The questionnaires included questions on the following (1) forest conditions, (2) PFOs' characteristics, and (3) PFOs' management behaviors and attitudes; these factors were considered to influence the differences in the future intention of forest management. Although relatives of PFOs may have responded to the questionnaire, they were treated as PFOs in this study. In Kunitomi, 502 questionnaires were mailed out, and of the 367 questionnaires sent out, excluding 135 that were unaddressed, 166 were returned (response rate: 45.2%), and the number of valid responses was 162 (valid response rate: 44.1%). In Kitakata, out of 613 letters sent by mail (625 questionnaires were mailed and 12 were unaddressed), 299 questionnaires (response rate: 48.8%) were received, and the number of valid responses was 298 (48.6%). The questionnaire surveys were conducted from October to November 2020 in Kunitomi, and from December 2020 to January 2021 in Kitakata.

Based on the results obtained, the PFOs were classified into two groups according to their future intentions for the forest management scale: "expansion/maintenance PFOs" (hereafter EM group) who want to expand or maintain the management scale, and "decrease PFOs" (hereafter D group) who want to decrease the forest management scale. We then compared the situation in the two regions and examined the effects of regional differences in forest ownership size on PFOs' future intentions to manage their forests. Then, we compared the forest conditions factors and PFOs' characteristics. After that, we compare PFOs' behaviors and attitudes to forest management in each region, elucidating the factors

that influence future intentions to forest management and regional differences. The chisquare test was used to make comparisons at a 0.05 significance level. Based on this analysis, we discuss the chances and challenges of NSFM (Figure 3).

**Figure 3.** Research structure.
