Forest environment transfer tax and urban-rural collaboration: Case of Chichibu City and Toshima District in Japan

Abstract

The year 2019 marked the first year of introducing the national forest environment transfer tax. The forest environment transfer tax scheme is mainly for the forest management in municipalities. Yet the forest areas in certain urban areas are limited and there is a room for urban-rural collaboration. In concrete terms, urban municipalities can receive relatively large revenue from the tax, because total population of municipalities is considered as one of the indicators to compute the amount of transferred tax for the municipalities. The urban municipalities can use the tax to facilitate the use of wood products, such as construction materials, and to conduct forest management in rural municipalities by implementing urban-rural collaboration. As a case of the urban-rural collaboration, collaboration between Toshima District and Chichibu City was analyzed and their process of collaboration and status of sharing human resources in Chichibu City and Saitama Prefecture were identified. Toshima District and Chichibu City have long-term experience of collaboration as sister municipalities. Chichibu City is conducting regional collaboration with surrounding municipalities on forest managements. These are the contexts of facilitating Toshima and Chichibu's urban-rural collaboration.