国有林におけるレクレーション事業の日米比較研究

Abstract

Demand for outdoor recreation is steadily increasing in Japan as well as other industrialized countries. National forest is one of the biggest suppliers of such recreational opportunities for the public both in Japan and in the United States; This paper aims to compare the features of national forest recreational activities in these two countries by analyzing their history, organizations, and legislative structures. In order to show a concrete image of present situation, several. examples of recreational activities in national forests; such as Sapporo, Kyoto, and Miyazaki District Forest Offices in Japan and Mt. Food, Chugach, and Coronado National Forests in the United States; are examined. On national forests in Japan, it is not rare to develop large scale resort with clearing hectares of uneconomic forests. The main reason of such behavior is huge deficit of national forest accounting. There also are bureaucratic inflexibility in Forestry Agency, and it makes recreational activities stereotyped and hardware-based. It is hard to say that the existing reason of Japanese national forest is for providing tangible and intangible utilities for national public. To compare with Japanese counterpart, recreational activities in US national forests are diverse and answering people's needs better. There are many skillful foresters dealing with recreational activities in Forest Service, and much more volunteers are supporting them efficiently. These manpower can provide variety of dispersed recreational opportunities which the people most want to have. Recreational activities in national forests are mostly prescribed by organizational system. Differences between two countries come from this point; centralized organization in Japan and decentralized agency in US. Even considering natural and geographic differences of forests .and people's taste for demanding outdoor recreation in both countries, national forest recreational activities in US is superior than those in Japan in many aspects in terms of user oriented recreation at the moment.