Japan
Japan has a large industrial capacity, and is home to some of the largest and most technologically advanced producers of motor vehicles, electronics, machine tools, steel and nonferrous metals, ships, chemical substances, textiles, and processed foods. Agricultural businesses in Japan cultivate 13 percent of Japan's land, and Japan accounts for nearly 15 percent of the global fish catch, second only to China. , Japan's labor force consisted of some 65.9 million workers. Japan has a low unemployment rate of around four percent. Some 20 million people, around 17 per cent of the population, were below the poverty line in 2007. Housing in Japan is characterized by limited land supply in urban areas.
Afforestation in Japan
During this twenty-year period, open pastures were cultivated in the Hokkaido region of northern Japan in an effort to attract more people to the area for agricultural development. Over forty-five thousand households immigrated to the Hokkaido region, but only 28.6% stayed. Most of the cultivated pasture land was abandoned and returned to the Japanese government from 1966-1977, as climate conditions in the area were not conducive to good crop yield. The shift from old growth forest to pasture left large areas of reduced soil fertility that trees were unable to recolonize. Due to a lack of a seed bank and competition with dwarf bamboo, human involvement was necessary to reforest the area. From 1978-2005 native trees with high growth rates were planted in plantations. It was mostly conifers that were planted in the area, but it has aided in the recovery of a conifer-broadleaf mixed forest.