Just about everyone agrees that the postwar expansion of plantation forestry and the fragmentation of natural old-growth forests by roads, dams and tourist facilities play a central role in Japan's current bear problem. The Japan Bear and Forest Association (JBFA) is one national organization directly addressing those issues.
"Animals can't live in many of Japan's forests," says the group's founder, Mariko Moriyama, a resident of Nishinomiya in Hyogo Prefecture. JBFA's goal is to conserve and restore diverse broadleaf forests where large animals, including bears, can thrive.
To that end, via the JBFA-affiliated nonprofit Okuyama Hozen Trust (Remote Mountain Conservation Trust), the group has bought and is preserving 1,266 hectares of natural forest at nine locations in Japan. Land trusts, a popular method for conserving natural areas in North America and many European countries, remain rare in Japan (one well-known exception is the C.W. Nicol Afan Woodland Trust, established by monthly JT nature columnist C. W. Nicol in Kurohime, Nagano Prefecture).