Recent Trends in Forest Labour Studies and their Related Fields since the Late 1990s in Japan ： Review and Future Challenges

摘要

After the late .1990s, a major change occurred in the characteristics of forest labourers due to the diversification of their recruitment routes. In response to these changes, forest labour studies placed strong emphasis on human resources and career development research. In addition, amidst the situation in which the borderline between labourers in the field and engineers is becoming unclear and new visions for forest labourers are being pursued, studies on forest engineers, who did not attract much attention for along time, are becoming increasingly significant. Currently, forest labour studies are facing the necessity of addressing practical challenges, such as what new visions exist for labourers in the field of sustainable forest management, what is their specialization, and how they design their development systems.