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Forests cover two-thirds of Japan’s land area, and 40 percent comprise trees planted by humans for lumber, mostly in the period of Japan’s rapid economic growth from 1955 to around 1970. These trees ranged in age from 45 to 60 years as of 2015, but with the opening of Japan to lumber imports, the strong yen, declining demand for lumber, and a lack of and aging of forestry workers, the manmade forests are no longer profitable. Owners have lost their motivation to manage their forestland and the result is a plethora of wooded land with tall, spindly trees resembling bean sprouts. Though Japan’s mountains appear to be cloaked in green, inside their forests it is too dark for undergrowth and water retention is poor as rain easily washes away the topsoil. Only forestry specialists are aware of how weak and close to collapse these forests are, and no one—neither the specialists nor government authorities—know exactly how many forests throughout the country are like this.
 
In 2005, five years after the torrential rains of 2000 that caused heavy damage to the mountains in the Tōkai region of Aichi, Gifu and Nagano prefectures, a project was launched by a group of volunteers and researchers to carry out a health check of the forests in the Yahagi River Basin which flows through the three prefectures. Groups of peop