A tree falling in a forest may not make a sound in Japan, at least not in the cash register.
"The price tag on your average straight-growing tree on a mountain comes out to about 1,000 yen," said Matsuo Iida, administrator of the Forestry Management Association of Japan, an incorporated body of tree growers. "If you count all the trees that can only be used for wood chips, the value on your average tree is about the same as one radish."
Discouraged tree farmers are refusing to replant what they've harvested. At the end of March, there were 25,000 hectares of abandoned stump-ridden forests, according to what lumberjacks say is an extra-conservative estimate by the Forestry Agency, an area equal to more than 5,347 Tokyo Dome baseball stadiums.