Page 134 - Changing Living Spaces

Taro Takemoto

ferred to Ishikawa Prefecture as an engineer and teacher of forestry. He
had not been back to Yamanashi Prefecture for a little over three years
before returning as Division Head.
As soon as Division 6 was established in 1902, the prefecture issued
regulations for the conservation forests. In addition, a policy statement
of Division 6, ‘Forest Remediation in Yamanashi Prefecture’, was pub-
lished in September 1903 (Meiji 36). This statement was probably re-
viewed by Saito, who had become the Division Head the year before.
The ‘forest remediation’ was to be applied to the devastated forests, first
as a compulsory measure by including them as conservation forests in
the Forest Act and ordering afforestation, and second as a supplemen-
tary measure by establishing seedling plots, providing seedlings, estab-
lishing model forests, and promoting forestry techniques (Yamanashi
Prefecture 1903a). In the supplementary measures, Saito implemented
in Yamanashi Prefecture what he had promoted in Ishikawa Prefecture
(Endo 1938, 193–8). However, in the compulsory measures, it was neces-
sary to work on developing laws and regulations that had never been in-
troduced before.
Saito even created his own ‘Instructions for Conservation Forest
Incorporation Records’ and published it in a journal so that other prefec-
tures could use it (Saito 1903a; 1903b). He also created an example of the
conservation forest ledger to be kept in the offices of towns and villages
in the prefecture, and called for a nationwide unification of standards for
keeping the ledger (Saito 1903a, 41–6).

Survey Report on the River Midai Water Source for Incorporation
into Conservation Forests
Yamanashi Prefecture, which established the Forestry Division, pre-
pared ‘Conservation Forest Survey Guidelines’ in consultation with the
BIe and conducted a fact-finding survey to include CILs in conservation
forests. As a result, a total of 34,377 cho were incorporated in the pre-
fecture in 1903–1904 (Meiji 36–7), with the largest area of 5,390 cho in
the Midai River basin (Yamanashi Prefecture 1922). This ‘Survey Report’
(Yamanashi Prefecture 1903c) initially contained the following informa-
tion about the Midai basin:3 (1) flood control and damage costs, and (2)
water source area by land category. This information was compiled into
a report on each of the two CILs in the water source area, the 36-ham-

3 The River Midai basin is located in western Yamanashi Prefecture (figure 10.1).

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