2 Years to Go: Yamagata Hopes to Promote Local Wood after Use at Olympics

August 6, 2018

Yamagata- The Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2020 is being viewed as a good opportunity to showcase the Japanese tradition of high-grade wooden construction to the rest of the world.

A total of 63 local governments in Japan plan to offer lumber for the construction of Village Plaza, an exchange facility in the athlete's village.

After the 2020 Games, the structure will be dismantled and the contributing governments will reuse the lumber in a range of Olympic legacy projects.

Yamagata Prefecture and the capital city of Yamagata, which will provide lumber for the athlete's facility, hope that the quadrennial sporting event will provide publicity for local wood products and stimulate supply.

In Japan, many of the man-made forests planted after the end of World War II are mature and ready to harvest, but logging has not made smooth progress chiefly due to slumps in prices.

Yamagata Prefecture, one of the local governments facing such problems, hopes that the planned use in the Olympic athlete's village will make the quality of lumber from Yamagata more widely known and help reinvigorate the local forestry industry.

For the athlete's village, the northeastern prefecture plans to procure raw cedar wood from prefecture-owned forests in the town of Mamurogawa and supply some 100 cubic meters of processed wood.

Once the wood is returned after the 2020 Games, the prefecture plans to use it to create benches and tables for a complex facility to be constructed at the west exit of Yamagata Station and for sports facilities in the prefecture.

"We're planning to consider (how to use the wood) after soliciting ideas from residents," an official of the forestry promotion section of the prefectural government.

The planned providing of lumber for the Tokyo Olympics is also aimed at improving local supply capacity.

Wood used for the athlete's village needs to be in compliance with the Japanese Agricultural Standard to ensure quality control.

Of 118 lumber mills in the prefecture, however, only 10 are equipped to produce lumber that satisfies JAS.

Prompted by the Olympics, the prefectural government plans to support stable supply of high-quality lumber.

In fiscal 2017, the government launched a program to cover half of the costs for lumber mills to acquire JAS certification. A plant to be established in the city of Shinjo in the current fiscal year will aim for JAS certification.

"Working on a number of projects with wood returned (from the Olympics) will be a natural legacy," the official of the forestry promotion section said. "But the best legacy will be taking the opportunity afforded by the Olympics to sell high-quality wood products."

The city of Yamagata is also taking part in the athlete' village project. At a cedar-cutting ceremony at a city-owned forest in Mount Itabashi, Yamagata Mayor Takahiro Sato said, "We hope that it (the lumber) will be used to embrace athletes warmly so they can draw on all their strength." Jiji Press