Japan survived an approaching deforestation crisis in the 17th century.  The authoritarian Shogunate implemented strictly enforced rationing and strong centralized control over reforestation.  It's covered in Jared Diamond's book.  The equivalent events in 17th century Europe led to the coal-based industrial revolution, but Japan managed to navigate the transition without doing that, and only industrialized much later when faced with external competition from Europeans.
Well, Athens had another solution for the problem of deforestation of Attica. Intensive imperialism in order to import wood from the Black Sea. They needed the wood to produce energy for the silver mines.
Japan managed to industrialize because they had coal. The coal deposits around Nagasaki were known before the Meiji restoration. They never had as much coal as the British but enough to start. Besides Japan did expand to North, to Hokkaido, where there was large forests. Later they seized the forests of Southern Sakhalin, and Taiwan (with some coal and forests). All these resources could be reached by sea.

But of course we can see the scarcity of wood in the Japanese building and life style.