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Amami Oshima (Island of Amami) in Japan has five species and two supspecies of animal wildlife that are designated as natural monuments by the national government. However, government subsidy has indirectly induced population decline of some of them through habitat destruction. Self-supporting industries make up only a small portion of the whole economy of Amami Oshima, so that financial support from the national and prefectural governments has been necessary to create a large number of jobs for local people.Forestry has been subsidized by the central governments to a large degree. As a result of cost-reduction in logging through the subsidy which has been devoted mostly to construction of logging roads, most original forests have been replaced by young secondary forests and logged areas in the central part of Amami Oshima, where all the wildlife taxa under consideration are to be observed at present. The governments have planned to manage these young forests with a 35–40 years' rotation-cycle for pulpwood, of which the commercial value is relatively low.Of the involved seven species and subspecies, the Great White's Thrush (Turdus dauma amami), Owston White-backed Woodpecker (Drendrocopos leucotos owstoni), and the Long-haired Rat (Rattus legata), appeared to be so dependent on mature forest (uncut for at least 40 years after selective felling) that they will probably not be able to maintain their populations if all the old forests are cut down. Small populations of the Ryukyu Robin (Erithacus komadori) may be able to survive in young secondary forests, but population decline will be substantial through the decrease in the area of mature forest. On the other three species—the Amami Rabbit (Pentalagus furnessi), Purple Jay (Garrulus lidthi), and Spinous Rat (Tokudaia osimensis)—the effects of clear-cutting of the mature forests are less obvious. Further decreases in the area of mature forests will probably cause a significant reduction in the present population-level of the Amami Rabbit, but negative effects of logging on the other two species should not be very serious. An increase in the length of rotation-cycles, and changes in the use of the subsidy, are proposed for improving the wildlife habitat and the economic efficiency of local forestry.

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Abstract:Once local expert knowledge regarding the harvesting of various non-timber forest products (NTFPs) is lost, it is difficult to recover. We investigated whether the knowledge of expert forest harvesters can be used to determine the habitat distribution and harvesting sites of three popular edible wild ferns, i.e., ostrich fern (Matteuccia struthiopteris), bracken (Pteridium aquilinum), and royal fern (Osmunda japonica), in mountainous communities of western Fukushima, Japan. Using multi-criteria evaluation (MCE) based on the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and geographic information system (GIS), we found that harvesters were easily able to recognize differences in the spatial characteristics of the habitat distribution of fern species due to both natural and anthropogenic factors. These factors were described by various GIS layers, such as vegetation and terrain features (e.g., gradient, aspect, and slope position) derived from a 20-m digital elevation model (DEM). Harvesting sites were limited by their distance from a roadway, which differed among species. By comparison with the GPS records of actual harvesting sites, we estimated the potential harvesting sites of each fern species with reasonable accuracy, particularly for bracken. Our results show that the knowledge of expert forest harvesters can be quantified using MCE and GIS, which is useful for determining the spatial characteristics of NTFP harvesting and ensuring sustainable management practices.

Biological technology allows us to invent new medical approaches, create effective food production methods and reserves and develop new materials for industrial production. There is a diversity of biological technology types, and different technologies have different priorities for invention. This study examines the factors that are important for the invention of biology-related technologies in Japan using patent application data and a decomposition analysis framework. As the results show, patent applications related to biochemistry and biotechnology increased until 1995 because of the expanded scale of R&D activities and the high priority assigned to biological technology. However, the number of patent applications stagnated after 1995, because the importance of biochemistry, especially waste-gas treatment technologies, decreased. Additionally, patent applications for medicines and disease-related technologies increased rapidly from 1971 to 1995. The primary determinant of rapid growth is an increase in research priority, especially among firms in the chemical industry whose technologies are related to supplemental foods and foods with health-promoting benefits. Finally, patent applications involving foodstuff-and agriculture-related technologies increased from 1971 to 1995 due to increased R&D and the increased priority of biological technology.

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The Amami rabbit Pentalagus furnessi is a rare forest‐dwelling form endemic to the Amami and Tokuno Islands in Japan. In order to estimate the distribution and abundance of the Amami rabbit we counted their faecal pellets along forest roads and streams as well as within the forests on Amami and Tokuno Islands during January 1993–March 1995. The number of pellets/km along a stream gave a practical index for measuring relative abundance. The rabbit was estimated to be distributed over about 370 sq km on Amami Island and 33 sq km on Tokuno Island. There was a large variance in faecal abundance among the survey routes. Some populations were completely isolated and thought to be very small. The size of a local population was positively correlated with those of neighbouring populations and the amount of mature forest relative to other seral stages. We compared the results of this survey with those of previous surveys to find that the total population of this species appears to be declining. Some conservation measures are proposed for forest habitat management, designed to avert the decline of the Amami rabbit and to ensure its preservation.