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Vol.64 No.18

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On August 9, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism announced that it has made its selection among the first call for proposed applications for the “Leading Projects for Sustainable Buildings (Climate Adaptation Type) for Fiscal 2023”, which will contribute to the dissemination and awareness of leading technology. In the climate-adaptive type of the project, the government provides support for a part of the construction costs for the construction of model housing that preserves traditional living culture and reduces the environmental impact. Four projects were selected. Among the selected, one was “Inaba House” proposed by the architecture office of Akito Niwa Atelier. This project is located in a rural area facing a valley on the outskirts of a city, and it accommodates seasonal living through traditional construction methods, floor plans, and a combination of old and new material. In addition, an area to meet with local residents was set up, and a home that will serve as a living space for generations to come was created.

Recently, an international joint team from Kochi University, Japan International Research Center for Agricultural Sciences, Okayama University, Research Institute for Humanity and Nature  Forest Department Sarawak, University Putra Malaysia, University of Malaysia Sarawak, and Mie University has developed technology to determine accurately the formation period of regenerated secondary tropical forests in Southeast Asia after they were destroyed by slash-and-burn farming or forest fires. Due to commercial logging and agricultural land development, most of the primary rainforests in Southeast Asia have disappeared in recent decades, and a majority of the remaining forests have been transformed into secondary forests (forests that have since regenerated). Appropriate evaluation of secondary tropical forests is essential to sustainably conserve and manage tropical forests, but the lack of technology to determine when they were formed has been a problem. 

On September 11, Daiken Corporation (Osaka City) announced that its consolidated subsidiary, Daiken Sarawak Sdn. Bhd. (referred to as DSK), which manufactures MDF, has acquired all shares of  WTK Reforestation Sdn. Bhd. (referred to as WTKR), a tree-planting business in Malaysia, by entering into a stock transfer agreement with the parent company of WTKR. WTKR is scheduled to become a subsidiary of DSK within this year. With this acquisition, a more stable procurement of wood from planted forests, which is the raw material for MDF, will take place, and  all of the wood fiber raw materials in DSK’s products will be switched to wood from planted forests with a target of completing this change within fiscal 2025.