Multi-Stakeholder Environmental Assessment (MS-EA) in Small-Scale Private Industrial Forest in Kochi Prefecture

今年的研究成果包括成功分析了将最近建立的日本林业系统实施到当地专家风险调解（LERM）的合作风险管理过程中的潜力，以便有可能在当地私人工业林中引入环境影响评估。通过收集当地林业官员的定性数据，进行了一个模糊的理论方法。结果发现，目前林业工作者的活动通常限于提高圆木生产的效率，因此没有显示出与环境影响评估早期阶段相适应的特点。这很可能是因为管理层表现出严格的自上而下的特征。从理论和实践的角度来看，让林业工作者在LERM的核心中发挥调解人的作用，有可能实现自下而上的管理，从而为在小规模私人林业中实施环境影响评估提供空间。

Research achievements this year include the successful analysis of the potential of implementing the recently established Japanese forester system into the collaborative risk management process of Local Expert Risk Mediation (LERM) for the possibility to introduce environmental impact assessment in local private industrial forest. A grounded-theory approach was conducted by collecting qualitative data from local forest officials. It was found that at the current time activities by foresters are usually limited to enhancing the efficiency of roundwood production, and therefore do not show characteristics compatible to the early stages of EIA. This is likely to the fact that management shows strict top-down characteristics. An implementation of foresters to take role of mediators within the core of LERM has, from a theoretical and practical perspective, the potential to enable bottom-up management, and therefore allow room for the implementation of EIA in small-scale private forestry.