A nonprofit group here is trying to serve as a bridge between local residents who want to live in wooden homes and forestry companies seeking to provide high-quality local timber at reasonable prices.

The group, Ki no ie daisuki no kai, (Group of wooden home lovers), wants to set up a Saitama lumber bank where lumber would be stockpiled and sold off when people need it to build a wooden home.

The lumber will cost a little more than usual, but it will be naturally dried and come from a district renowned for high quality.

By networking with the Saitama prefectural government, building contractors and forestry companies, the NPO hopes not only to create a new distribution mechanism for local lumber but also to help in the preservation of forests.

About one-third of Saitama Prefecture’s total area, 123,000 hectares, is forest. About half of that area is artificial forest, meaning that upkeep is required to maintain the forest in a healthy condition.

However, after lumber imports were liberalized in 1964, demand for domestic lumber fell from about 80 percent of the total to only about 20 percent.

In 1980, there were 161 companies in Saitama working in the forestry industry, but that number fell to 34 by 2000. Without enough companies to fell trees for lumber, some officials are concerned that the forests will deteriorate.

At the same time, consumer needs for wooden homes have not fallen.

The NPO conducted a survey in January in conjunction with the Saitama prefectural government office that promotes use of local lumber. About 70 percent of the respondents said they wanted to live in wooden homes.

Susumu Suzuki, who heads Ki no ie daisuki no kai, explained that the current structure of supplying lumber does not match the demand from consumers.

“The varied needs of Saitama residents are not being transmitted to lumber companies,“ Suzuki said.

Ordinarily, lumber goes through several middlemen before reaching the consumer. In between the forest and the consumer are the companies that cut down the trees and deliver it to lumber markets, companies that prepare the trees for use as lumber as well as lumber wholesalers.

The Saitama lumber bank proposal would create a network among lumber companies and building contractors that would make it easier for consumers to learn where to go for their wooden homes.

Under the proposal, trees would be felled between September and February, when humidity is lower. The trees would be left on the forest floor to dry naturally. Such drying makes more resilient lumber that has a better luster when processed.

That process would also distinguish the local lumber from cheaper imports or artificially dried lumber, officials said.

Last October, the NPO accepted applications from local residents who wanted to build wooden homes. A tree-cutting demonstration was held in Hanno, which is known for producing quality lumber.

At the moment, three families are having their homes built. The construction cost of an approximately 100-square-meter, two-story home will come out to about 19.4 million yen. The cost of the lumber is about 2 million yen, or about 10 percent of the construction cost. The lumber costs between 2 and 6 percent more than wood bought through normal distribution channels.

The Saitama prefectural government and the NPO want to spread awareness of local lumber and be able to provide a stable supply by building a warehouse that would also serve as an exhibition hall and sales area.

“In the future, we want to create an ecology fund that would invest in the resuscitation of forests and give local residents who invest in the fund priority in purchasing local lumber,“ a government official said.