The values of a forest can be divided into “use” or “non-use”. On Yakushima Island, Japan, forests have been used directly and indirectly for a long time, so the use value of these forests has been very high for local people. In recent years, however, the non-use value of forests has become more generally recognized. In this study, we focused on the non-use value and examined its effects on the awareness of local people of nature conservation. Since 2001, we have been surveying the awareness of local residents of nature conservation on this island. We reviewed a series of surveys from the perspective of use and non-use values of forests, and noted the following trends. (1) Local people recognized both types of forest value. (2) The primary forest use has transitioned from direct to indirect use. (3) The use value of forests promotes awareness of nature conservation. (4) Individuals who are very interested in nature can contribute to conservation activities, even if they never use the forest directly. (5) The desire for strangers to know well of their island was one of the factors that contributed to local people's awareness of conservation. To examine the relationship between non-use values and conservation awareness, we compared the conservation awareness of three groups of people with different value sets: (1) people who considered only the non-use value of forests (NUVG), (2) people who considered only the use value (UVG), and (3) people who considered both of these values (NUV^*UVG). Our results indicate that the NUV^*UVG group had the highest conservation awareness, whereas that of the NUVG group was rather low. The differences in value systems depended on the frequency of forest use. We concluded that not only the awareness of non-use values but also recognition of the multivalues of a forest were important to promote forest conservation among locals.