Forests of beech, silver fir, broad-leaf evergreens and mangroves once carpeted Japan. However, the postwar economic boom and in particular the massive increase in construction led to the decimation of many of these natural forests. They were replanted with quick-growing Japanese cedar and cypress, but then, as cheaper timber flooded in from Southeast Asia, Canada and South America in the 1970s, local demand slumped, leaving a large proportion of Japan's domestic plantations unused and untended.

While around 67 percent of Japan is still forested, about 40 percent of this comprises commercial plantations and Japan has come precariously close to losing some of its most spectacular areas of natural forest. The "old-growth" beech forests (that is, stands of ancient trees, but not necessarily untouched virgin forest) of the Shirakami Mountains in northwest Honshu, for example, came under direct threat in the 1980s from a government proposal to build a logging road right through them. Citizens' groups, together with the Nature Conservation Society of Japan (NCSJ), mounted a huge campaign to demonstrate the forest's immeasurable ecological and national value. As a result, the government reconsidered the plan and the forest is now designated a UNESCO World Heritage site.

The activities of Japanese paper and timber companies in the old-growth and primary forests (those subjected to only minimal human disturbance) of neighbouring countries is a huge concern for environmentalists worldwide. In Australia, for example, one such company operates a wood-chipping mill that is fed by old-growth eucalyptus trees at a rate of several football fields a day under a twenty-year licence granted by the Australian government. The wood is sold for twenty cents a tonne to make tissues, fax paper and newspapers for the Japanese market. Various Australian environmental groups - Chipstop, Friends of the Earth and The Wilderness Society - have joined forces with the Japan Tropical Forest Action Network (JATAN) among others to petition the Australian government and the Japanese paper industry to use wood chips from sustainable sources instead