Japanese have been producing wood for 700 years without cutting down trees
Coppicing, Hedge laying, Bocage, drystone walling, wattle-and-daub are all domestic comparable ancient crafts of Europe. The point being that probably only drystone walling is valued in a way comparable to the Japanese version of Coppicing, which really has been transformed into an artform. European coppices are cut close to the rootstock and cut down far younger for use as poles, for wood turning, for hedge laying.
Timber framed construction in Europe was nailless (wooden tree nails permitted) but the mortice and tenon joinery of Japan is in another league. Maybe European Gothic cathedral roofs come close, little else would.
Japan modernised in the modern era, it's industrial revolution was comparatively recent and it remained feudal far longer than Europe (Russian serfdom aside)
There are probably more continuous family heritage firms in Japan practising some art (brewing, soy sauce, woodwork, coppicing) than anywhere else. Can you name a European family concern doing the same thing continuously since before 1600? I can't name any Japanese ones but I wouldn't be surprised if there were many. Institutional enterprises like Oxford university press exist since deep time, but in Japan it would be a continuous lineage of printers continuing to use woodblock printing (maybe alongside hot type or photo typesetting)
Farming does remain in the family but European farming practices have modernised since forever.
Everyone here is mentioning coppicing, so I suspect there will be some interest in the Low Tech Magazine articles on the subject:
https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/coppicing/
And since we're talking about doing cool things with trees, I just wanted to mention that LTM has more interesting articles slightly "adjacent" to this topic, like this one about a half-forgotten technique for growing citrus trees in climates with freezing temperatures:
https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2020/04/fruit-trenches-culti...
I wish there was a way to apply this technique to some of the rarer woods that have fantastic uses in production, like teak, rosewood, and grenadilla.
If you're into hardwoods like musical instruments or fine furniture there's an appreciation you grow for the character of these woods. And a moral quandary with the sourcing of it. It seems impossible to find a sustainable method to source the material. A lot of what we make today will seem impossible in the coming decades.
Grenadilla trees in particular are suffering due to over harvesting and poor oversight in the markets where it is sourced. It is prized for woodwind instruments - and the day is coming where it's only going to be economical to use recycled polymer composites (which have many benefits besides commercial) over true solid wood instruments. If we could sustainably turn these trees into fruit trees harvested over centuries it would be a great service to nature and the industry.
The ancient japanese governments restricted the peasants from destroying the allmende. No hunting with weapons, only traps. No chopping down trees. Its the only way a society on a island with limitations can thrive.
This is a hack to circumvent the no lumbering rule. As far as im aware, similar rules never were applied in europe, just all things chopped down, and then some state forrests and macchia.
Clickbait title. Japanese do cut trees. This technique is just used in very minor situations.
> The other reason the technique was developed was fashion. In the 14th century, a linear, stylized form of architecture known as sukiya-zukuri was extremely popular
I'm also fascinated by how Japan apparently had it's own Bauhaus period, some 600 years before the west did.
When I first drove past freshly coppiced woodland near me I was shocked. What had they done? They'd butchered the forest. All the trees reduced to less than a foot off the ground. They all grow back though and it doesn't take too long for the woods to return to what they looked like before.
Beavers in the wet meadow by my driveway coppice willows to produce large amounts of material on a sustainable basis.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coppicing
I've not only seen the results but I've actually pulled the wood out of their dams by hand when I disassemble them to prevent them from flooding my driveway. It's not that hard to do so long as you keep the water level low. Once the water level gets high they get a lot more productive because they can easily float large amounts of wood.
How much timber can be made this way (including similar methods like coppicing)?
Is it enough to contribute a noticeable amount to the modern timber industry? Or is it more of a "huh that's cool" conversation topic?
This could be wrongly understood as "Japan wood industry doesn't cut down trees", which is false.
Japanese forests are currently suffering an intense demand and are overexploited.
A large part of the cuts are undeclared or under-declared, and clear cuts are not rare.
Undeclared overexploitation of mountain top forests has been one of the determined causes of some catastrophic landslides a couple of years ago.
@dang would it be possible to update the title in order to convey the meaning that it is one fabulous technique used in Japan, without letting believe that it is the technique used in Japan?
> A similar technique is also used in other parts of the world, such as the UK, but under the name Coppice and Pollarding. While the technique is similar, it's not exactly the same, as daisugi only works with seedlings from a specific mutant cedar in a specific location in Kyoto.
Dang, that's a shame.
Similar to coppicing! Or maybe a regional specialization of coppicing?
Trees are incredibly resilient organisms, and producing products like this from them is such a great lost art.
> This is an ancient method, developed in the 14th century
14th century ancient? bah humbug! There's evidence of coppicing in the UK from about 6500 years ago.
> The practice of coppicing can be traced back to Neolithic times (4500 BC). Neolithic wattle trackways in the Somerset Levels are evidence of sophisticated coppicing systems which produced rods of exactly the same size. Archaeological evidence shows that coppice products were used for numerous rural needs throughout the Bronze, Roman and Saxon periods
https://www.conservationhandbooks.com/woodlands/a-brief-hist...
See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coppicing
Without cutting DOWN trees. I was trying to guess how they could grow square trees.
See also this video and information from a german TV show: https://www.galileo.tv/natur/daisuigi-wie-in-japan-holz-gewo...
Related https://us.eia.org/blog/japan-a-major-market-for-high-risk-t... .
It seems like this ancient practice can not fulfil Japan's timber demand.
> daisugi only works with seedlings from a specific mutant cedar in a specific location in Kyoto
Need more mutations!!
I couldn't help but think about how this is similar to the type of pruning/bending you apply in conjunction with trellis netting when growing cannabis if you want to maximize your top colas in a confined space.
> Here and there in the forests around Kyoto you will find abandoned giant daisugi (they only produce lumber for 200-300 years before being worn out), still alive, some with trunk diameters of over 15 meters.
15 meters?? Seriously??
Youtube video is bad, there's no video to see how things are really done.
Always love reading about sustainability practices.
Sidenote/tangent: why put a chat modal on a blog? I don't get it. It takes up valuable mobile real estate and I'm sure the desktop UX is not improved.
I always thought that trees spend energy to grow higher, because they are fighting for the sun. Looking at the picture there seem to be enough sun for each sprout,why does it keep growing?
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Does the Japanese government pay for or in some way support articles like this? Do people in Japan get articles about how amazing coppicing is in the UK?
Articles like this about Japan make me feel a bit weird but I kind of wish we were better at fetishising our own produce and practices like we do with the Japanese.
>This is an ancient method, developed in the 14th century
Isn't it interesting, how most of the history of East Asia just has label "ancient" slapped onto it in pop-culture?
I can produce wood too without cutting down trees