‘Daisugi’ — Japanese Art of Forestry
An age-old tradition that could help inspire a sustainable future…
In the dense mountain forests surrounding the ancient city of Kyoto, Japan, rows of red Kitayama cedar trees tower silently over the sloping valleys and hillsides below. Their serene presence nods to the fast-fading practice of daisugi (台杉), a remarkable forestry tradition steeped in cultural history and unique to the region.
Daisugi, which translates roughly to “platform cedar”, is a method that dates back to the Muromachi empire of fourteenth-century Japan. Kyoto at the time was a flourishing cultural center, home to some of the country’s most esteemed temples, shrines and institutions. As the city rapidly expanded, however, foresters struggled to meet soaring demands for timber with limited access to flat land and seedlings.
Daisugi emerged as a resourceful solution to this challenge, similar to pollarding. Foresters began experimenting with extreme pruning that effectively stimulated the growth of new saplings on top of existing Kitamaya cedar trees, growing the new trees along the large lateral branches of a single parent tree. So, the saplings are like clones of the mother tree and can take advantage of its mature root system. Their efforts were rewarded: not only was the growth cycle of new offshoots faster than…
