Nippon Paper Industries Co., Ltd. (President: Takahiko Miyoshi), a core member of the Nippon Unipac Holding Group, will establish in August 2003, a new Forestry Science Laboratory, which will operate as an independent research laboratory in Kita-ku, Tokyo. The laboratory, which is tasked with bolstering biotechnology research for trees as a raw material for pulp, is created by amalgamating the Forest Resources Laboratory (Iwakuni, Yamaguchi) and the Wood Bioengineering Laboratory (Kita-ku, Tokyo).

 

The Nippon Paper Industries' Environmental Charter declared that the company would plant trees in 100,000 hectares by 2008. To achieve this, it has been actively planting trees abroad. At the same time, it has also undertaken R&D to produce excellent seedlings for planting (chiefly eucalyptus), to improve the yield and quality of woodchips. The Forest Resources Laboratory has been focusing on technology for the mass propagation of excellent clones while the Wood Bioengineering Laboratory has been researching ways to provide added value, such as salt tolerance based on genetic engineering. To further this research and benefit from synergies, these two laboratories will be amalgamated as the Forestry Science Laboratory, which will specialize in biotechnology. This amalgamation is expected to bring a more rapid practical application for the results of the company's past R&D activities. The new laboratory will be headed by Kunichika Murakami, who currently heads the Forest Resources Laboratory.

 

Since 1999, Nippon Paper Industries has been integrating decentralized R&D divisions in Kita-ku, Tokyo. It has been also moving forward with the centralization of the R&D system, to bolster the R&D by putting in place a single, comprehensive research process from raw materials to the product stage and by constructing a more efficient R&D system. This move of the Forest Resources Laboratory will complete the integration of all R&D divisions associated with paper and pulp.

<Key technologies developed by the Forest Resources Laboratory>

 

・･Clonal propagation of eucalyptus

・･Cloning technology of trees using the photoautropic culture system, etc.

 

<Key technologies developed by the Wood Bioengineering Laboratory>

 

・･Genetically engineered salt-tolerant eucalyptus based on the Multi-Auto-Transformation Vectorﾂｮ System

・･Rice with health benefits based on the Multi-Auto-Transformation Vectorﾂｮ System