Japan's Resources

Japan has very few natural resources, their minerals are iron ore, copper, zinc, lead and, silver. Important energy resources such as oil and coal have to be imported from elsewhere. Their tea crops are very important and the main tea they grow are green tea.

First Picture: Iron Ore
Second Picture: Copper
Third Picture: Zinc
Fourth Picture: Lead
Fifth Picture: Silver
Sixth Picture: Oil
Seventh Picture: Coal
Eight Picture: Green Tea

Farming

They cannot cultivate on the mountains because the slopes are too steep and the flat land is given to be used as urban or industrial. The land between the mountains has to be terraced to be able to farm on it.

Picture: mountains in Japan

Rice

Despite the very difficult conditions for farming rice is very important to the Japanese economy. Rice needs particular conditions to grow, the seeds are cultivated under plastic greenhouses until they are seedlings. They are then planted with roots covered by 10cm of water, then substantial engineering woks required to provide the irrigation and drainage systems needed for the paddy fields. The rice matures in autmn and is golden-brown before harvested. It is grown throughout Japan but mostly in the south.

Pictures: Rice fields in Japan

Other crops

Other grains that are cultivated are barley and that supplys the country's massive brewing industry. They have a big range of fruit, and vegatables like tomatoes, cucumbers, sweet potatoes, lettuces, apples, nectarines.

Top: Apples
Middle: Barley
Bottom: Tomatoes

Timber

Japan is very rich in woodland but not timber. Much of the woodland lies in remote mountanious areas, expensive to exploit.

Land Resources

Some of Japan's land resources are fish, potatoes, tea fruit, sugar beet, sugar cane, charcoal, timber, silk, hops

Fishing

For many years Japan has caught more fish than any other country. Just like other great fishing nations they have suffered depletion of coastel and deep-sea fisheries these recent years. From that they have depleted fishing stocks and there is coastel water and international restrictions on deep-sea fishing. Today they are ranked third in the world for fishing. The decline in the fishing fleet has had drastic impact on many fishing communties. Many fishing communties have hit a number of problems. enviromental protesters. They have had enviromental protesters, pollution in inland waters, but the main problem was overfishing. They are being caught to early and they had no time to breed successfully and that declined great numbers of unemployment To make up for their loss they increased aquaculture or fish farming. Fish is a very important part of the Japanese diet, they use 40% of population intake of animal protein far higher than most western countries.

In 1985 they caught 12 million tonnes worth of fish. In 1995 they caught 7.5 million tonnes worth of fish.


Right: Fish market

Energy Resources

Japan's rapid growth leaves a huge problem and because of their growth they have to import over 80 percent of fuel. In the mid 1990's their oil imports were from the Middle East which made Japan very vulnerable to political instability in a volatile part of the world. Since then the government has taken some steps to tackle this problem

Conserving Energy

During 1973 to 1987 Japan's iron and steel industry reduced ebergy use per tonne of steel by over a quarter. The beleive that they reached the limits of cost- effectie energy conservation. Their per-capita energy consumption less than that of United States and France, but they are a little bit higher than the United Kingdom.


Above: Japan nightlife