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At plantations of the evergreen conifer Cryptomeria japonica (ca. 20 years old) damaged by heavy snow, the growth of planted trees, composition of colonizing native hardwoods, and successional trends of tree populations were investigated. The study site of ca. 2 km ×2 km was established in 1998 within a river basin contiguous to the Shirakami Mountains which was registered as a World Natural Heritage site. This site was originally covered with old-growth forests of Fagus crenata. Twenty-one plots (each 400m²) were established (11 in the plantations and 10 in adjacent remnant natural forests) and a census of trees was conducted in 1998 and in 2000. During this period, the mean basal area slightly decreased from 39.8 to 38.8m²ha⁻¹ in the natural forests, In the plantations, the mean basal area increased from 15.3 to 20.3m²ha⁻¹. Only focusing on C. japonica, the value changed from 11.4 to 14.2m²ha⁻¹ …