The Green Archipelago: Forestry in Pre-Industrial Japan

Chapter Three. Timber Depletion during the Early Modern Predation,1570-1670

Chapter Three Timber Depletion during the Early Modern Predation, 1570-1670 The early modern predation was essentially the ancient predation writ large. Once again a ruling elite launched a vast construction boom that produced great monuments and cities. This time, however , the elite spanned the realm and in pursuit of its objectives had power enough to exploit human and natural resources throughout Japan. Within a century its enthusiasm for building had stripped the archipelago of nearly all its high forest. The documentation on this surge of forest exploitation, while superior to that of earlier centuries, is still spotty and yields no satisfying series of general statistics. Cumulatively, however, the scattered records of elite timber consumption are considerable. They reveal how the archipelago lost its high forest during the seventeenth century and suggest how that process led to the creation of a "negative regimen," or pervasive attempts to regulate timber and forest use as a way to preserve and rejuvenate wood supplies. They also show that these processes of nationwide deforestation and consequent resource control were foreshadowed by actions of daimyo warring for survival and supremacy during the latter half of the sixteenth century. The surge in elite timber consumption was accompanied by a tremendous expansion in villagers' use of woodland, primarily because of rapid population growth. Much forest was converted to tillage, and much that remained uncultivated was exploited inten5 ° Timber Depletion,1570—1670 51 sively for fertilizer, fuel, fodder, and domestic construction needs. By the late seventeenth century the combined demand of ruler and ruled had consumed most of the accessible biomass reserves and exceeded current woodland production. That situation precipitated more conflicts over use rights and fostered attempts to resolve problems of overexploitation and scarcity. Many villages attacked the problems by expanding their control over woodland use,essentially extending the forest closure practices that first emerged during the fifteenthcentury. Forest closure by villages collided with closure by higher authority when the latter revived during the late sixteenth century. In a sense this collision of rulers and ruled over woodland use threw Japan into a long, drawn-out social struggle for control of uplands, a struggle that in various forms continued to the mid-twentieth century . We must qualify this bipolar ruler-versus-ruled perspective, however, because intra- and intervillage conflicts over woodland use were probably much more common and central to the problem of resource scarcity and its social ramifications. Nor will it do to assert that quarrels arose among villagers because rulers deprived them of access to woodland. The rulers did so, certainly, but even if villagers had enjoyed unrestricted use of everything available, they would in due course have consumed it all, at which point they would have faced the problem of scarcity anyway. Reconstruction of the broader story of environmental despoliation is difficult because records of commoner forest use in general, and of fuel use in particular, are few. Such records of fuel use as do exist mostly relate to the rulers, although total commoner consumption surely was greater. Figures on fodder and fertilizer use are almost nil even though the considerable record of village disputes over land-use rights suggests that these needs were one of the most common causes of village conflict. Moreover, while much woodland was converted to arable, a clear picture of what land was converted and how that process affected remaining forest has yet to emerge. Finally, the story of ecological deterioration—erosion, flooding, and denuding of hillsides—that stemmed from these several forms of exploitation is recorded only sporadically in legislation and in writings of contemporary observers. Consequently, the scale, dynamics , and social ramifications of environmental decay are poorly articulated and await further study. 52 A Millennium of Exploitation Forestry Forest Use by the Rulers The disaster that befell Japan's forests in the century after 1570 began almost surreptitiously in the scattered activities of warring daimyo. Deforestation accelerated sharply after 1590 when an almighty Toyotomi Hideyoshi, having pacified the turbulent realm, commenced monumental construction projects that required high-grade lumber from throughout Japan. After Hideyoshi's death in 1598, Tokugawa leyasu defeated rivals, established a shogunate (bakufu) in Edo, and launched an even greater series of projects. His ventures ultimately consumed more lumber than Hideyoshi's, even if many were less demanding of fine wood or giant timbers. After leyasu's death in 1616, the rate of monumental construction slackened but continued, and urban growth and...