FAQ

I visited your website. I really like the look and healing properties of your tubs. And, the craftsmanship seems outstanding.
After reading about the hinoki wood and the few places it can be found, I was curious if the hinoki wood you are using is farmed or old wood.
Is there concern about depleting it? Here in the Northwest United States much of our cedar is gone — to the point of great environmental concern.
I know Japan is protecting its forests as well. I’m curious about the current situation with the hinoki species.

We use both cultivated and natural wood. It depends on the type of project, size, quantity etc.
In any case, all the wood comes from sustainably managed areas, some are FSC certified (FSC tands for Forest Stewardship Council).
Hinoki is a coniferous tree and the growth takes about 20-25 years before being commecially exploitable. Farmed wood has the advantage of having few or no thru knots for an optimized usage of the material.
Japanese farmed coniferous wood is a story with lights and shadows.
Back in the 60`s and 70`s, millions of acres of mixed aboriginal woodland has been destroyed to make space for the more commecially exploitable farmed wood for construction.
To add insult to injury, during the 1990`s a weak dollar promoted imports of cheap 2×4 material from Canada, so that japan forestry entered a deep crysis.
After overproduction caused a drop in price, many forested areas ceased to be maintained or were abandoned all-together.
This created a new problem: man-made monocultured-crop forests are not stable ecosystem and the lack of maintenance causes landslides and other disasters.
The bottomline is that there is no point in crying over the poured milk: now the only thing we can do is to use this overstocked farmed wood to bring some relief to the mountain problems and maybe end up saving also some north american cedar forest (or what is left.)