Japan is a country with almost 5 billion m3 of wood standing on 25 million ha of land, and with some 100 million m3 growing every year. Out of the natural growth, only 20 million m3 are being harvested, while more than 40 million m3 are being sourced from abroad.

Importing massive amounts of wood for meeting the requirements of the processing industry often generates a very high true accounted cost, to be immediately paid not in Japan, but overseas, in the countries of origin of that wood.

Japan has enough forest resources for reaching a high self-sufficiency in a sustainable way, if the right planning is done and the correct technologies are put at work, both in terms of forest management and wood harvesting.

In the past three years, we have put a constant effort in opening the Japanese market for the use of modern cableways, in order to ensure that valuable wood resources will be procured in an ecologically effective and economically efficient way from the mountain areas, where most of the forests are located.

With the combined efforts of the Swiss manufacturer Wyssen Seilbahnen AG and their dealer in Japan, the company Light&Co. Ltd., we have been going step by step in the right direction, increasing awareness among Japanese forestry professionals, transferring the very much needed know-how and the state-of-the-art equipment customised for the local forest conditions of different clients.

Japanese volcanic mountains pose great challenges to road building and maintenance, therefore we bring in the solution of long-distance cableways, capable of reaching to distances longer than 2 km, and transport up to 4-ton loads both uphill and downhill (by smartly using the gravity).

Work safety is of paramount importance to us, therefore all deliveries of equipment include a practical field training, covering planning the cableway line, the actual setting up of the installation, the start of the work itself and regular maintenance to be done by the forest workers.

We are now delighted to deliver a new complete installation to the Forest Center of Nara Prefecture, which will get all the above mentioned benefits, and even more, by accessing valuable forest resources which are now hard to reach, getting to do forest tending and thinning operations at the right time, thus positively impacting the future growth of the stand, protect sensitive soil, waters and biodiversity while still being able to generate value from wood.

We focus on sustainable harvesting as an essential link in the wood-products value chain, in order to ensure that tomorrow’s wood-based circular economy is both sustainable and profitable.