OSAKA — The logging industry has been in decline and unable to compete with imported timber, but volunteer groups working to preserve trees in danger are surging.

The value of timber production in Japan in 2007 came to ¥225.6 billion, about one-fifth of the sum reported in 1980, while the number of people engaged in forestry plummeted to about 47,000 in 2005 from more than 250,000 in the 1960s.

The sharp drop has been attributed to the fall in prices of standing trees in 1980 to one-seventh that of imported lumber, as well as the depopulation of mountain villages and rising number of forest owners living in urban areas.