Japanese logging

In recent decades the timber industry has intensified efforts to harvest logs from tropical, temperate, and boreal forests worldwide to meet an increasing demand for wood and wood products. Japanese companies have been particularly active in logging and importing timber from around the world. Because of wasteful and destructive logging practices that result from efforts to maximize corporate financial gains, those interested in reducing deforestation have raised many concerns about Japan's logging industry.

The world's forests, especially tropical rain forests, are rich in species , including plants, insects, birds, reptiles, and mammals. Many of these species exist only in very limited areas where conditions are suitable for their existence. These endangered forest dwellers provide unique and irreplaceable genetic material that can contribute to the betterment of domestic plants and animals. The forests are a valuable resource for medically useful drugs. Healthy forests stabilize watersheds by absorbing rainfall and retarding runoff . Mat roots help control soil erosion , preventing the silting of waterways and damage to reefs, fisheries, and spawning grounds.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization reports tropical deforestation rates of 42 million acres (over 17 million ha) per year. More than half of the Earth's primary tropical forest area has vanished, and more than half of the remaining forest has been degraded. While Brazil contains about a third of the world's remaining tropical rain forest , southeast Asia is now a major supplier of tropical woods. Burma, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Kampuchea, Malaysia, Indonesia, Borneo, New Guinea, and the Philippines contain 20% of the world's remaining tropical forests. With current rates of deforestation, it is estimated that almost all of Southeast Asia's primary forests will be gone by the year 2010. While a number of countries make use of rain forest wood, Japan is the number one importer of tropical timber. Japan's imports account for about 30% of the world trade in tropical lumber.

Japan also imports large amounts of timber from temperate and boreal forests in Canada, Russia, and the United States. These three countries contain most of the remaining boreal forests, and they supply more than half of the world's industrial wood. As demand for timber continues to climb, previously undisturbed virgin forests are increasingly being used. To speed harvesting, logging roads are built to provide access, and heavy equipment is brought in to hasten work. In the process, soil is compacted, making plant re-growth difficult or impossible. Although these practices are not limited to one country, Japanese firms have been cited by environmentalists as particularly insensitive to the environmental impact of logging.

The globe's forests are sometimes referred to as the 'lungs of the planet,' exchanging carbon dioxide for oxygen. Critics claim that the wood harvesting industry is destroying this vital natural resource, and in the process this industry is endangering the planet's ability to nurture and sustain life. Widespread destruction of the world's forests is a growing concern. Large Japanese companies, and companies affiliated with Japanese firms, have logged old growth forests in several parts of the globe to supply timber for the Japanese forest products industry. Clear-cutting of trees over large areas in tropical rain forests has made preservation of the original flora and fauna impossible. Many species are becoming extinct. Replanting may in time restore the trees, but it will not restore the array of organisms that were present in the original forest.

Large scale logging activities have had a largely negative impact on the local economies in exporting regions because whole logs are shipped to Japan for further processing. Developed countries such as the United States and Canada, which in the past harvested timber and processed it into lumber and other products, have lost jobs to Japan. Indigenous cultures that have thrived in harmony with their forest homelands for eons are displaced and destroyed. Provision has not been made for the survival of local flora and fauna, and provision for forest re-establishment has thus far proven inadequate. As resentment has grown in impacted areas, and among environmentalists, efforts have emerged to limit or stop large-scale timber harvesting and exporting.

Although concern has been voiced over all large-scale logging operations, special concern has been raised over harvesting of tropical timber from previously undisturbed primary forest areas. Tropical rain forests are especially unique and valuable natural resources for many reasons, including the density and variety of species within their borders. The exploitation of these unique ecosystems will result in the extinction of many potentially valuable species of plants and animals that exist nowhere else. Many of these forms of life have not yet been named or scientifically studied. In addition, over-harvesting of tropical rainforests has a negative effect on weather patterns, especially by reducing rainfall.

Japan is a major importer of tropical timber from Malaysia, New Guinea, and the Solomon Islands. Although the number of imported logs has declined in recent years, this has been matched by an increase in imported tropical plywood manufactured in Indonesia and Malaysia. As a result, the total amount of timber removed has remained fairly constant. An environmentalist group called the Rainforest Action Network (RAN) has issued an alarm concerning recent expansion of logging activity by firms affiliated with Japanese importers. The RAN alleges that: "After laying waste to the rain forests of Asia and the Pacific islands, giant Malaysian logging companies are setting their sights on the Amazon. This past year, some of Southeast Asia's biggest forestry conglomerates have moved into Brazil, and are buying controlling interests in area logging companies, and purchasing rights to cut down vast rain forest territories for as little as $3 U.S. dollars per acre. In the last few months of 1996 these companies quadrupled their South American interests, and now threaten 15% of the Amazon with immediate logging. According to The Wall Street Journal, up to 30 million acres (12.3 million ha) are at stake. Major players include the WTK Group, Samling, Mingo, and Rimbunan Hijau."

The RAN claims that "the same timber companies in Sarawak, Malaysia, worked with such rapacious speed that they devastated the region's forest within a decade, displacing traditional peoples and leaving the landscape marred with silted rivers and eroded soil."

One large Japanese firm, the Mitsubishi Corporation, has been targeted for criticism and boycott by the RAN, as one of the world's largest importers of timber. The boycott is an effort to encourage environmentally-conscious consumers to stop buying products marketed by companies affiliated with the huge conglomerate, including automobiles, cameras, beer, cell phones, and consumer electronics equipment. Through its subsidiaries, Mitsubishi has logged or imported timber from the Philippines, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, Bolivia, Indonesia, Brazil, Chile, Canada (British Columbia and Alberta), Siberia, and the United States (Alaska, Oregon, Washington, and Texas). The RAN charges that "Mitsubishi Corporation is one of the most voracious destroyers of the world's rain forests. Its timber purchases have laid waste to forests in the Philippines, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, Brazil, Bolivia, Australia , New Zealand, Siberia, Canada, and even the United States." The Mitsubishi Corporation itself does not sell consumer products, but it consists of 190 interlinked companies and hundreds of associated firms that do market to consumers. This conglomerate forms one of the world's largest industrial and financial powers. The Mitsubishi umbrella includes Mitsubishi Bank, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Mitsubishi Electronics, Mitsubishi Motors, and other major components. To force Mitsubishi and other corporations involved with timber harvesting to operate in a more environmentally responsible way and to end "their destructive logging and trading practices," an international boycott was organized in 1990 by the World Rainforest Movement (tropical forests) and the Taiga Rescue Network (boreal forests).

The Mitsubishi Corporation has countered criticism by launching a program "to promote the regeneration of rain forests...in Malaysia that plants seedlings and monitors their development." In 1990, the corporation formed an Environmental Affairs Department, one of the first of its kind in Japan, to draft environmental guidelines, and coordinate corporate environmental activities. In the words of the Mitsubishi Corporation Chairman, "A business cannot continue to exist without the trust and respect of society for its environmental performance." Mitsubishi Corporation reports that they have launched a program to support experimental reforestation projects in Malaysia, Brazil, and Chile. In Malaysia, the company is working with a local agricultural university, under the guidance of a professor from Japan. About 300,000 seedlings were planted on a barren site in 1991. Within five years, the trees were over 33 feet (10 m) in height and the corporation claimed that they were "well on the way to establishing techniques for regenerating tropical forest on burnt or barren land using indigenous species." Similar projects are underway in Brazil and Chile. The company is also conducting research on sustainable management of the Amazon rain forests. In Canada, Mitsubishi Corporation has participated in a pulp project called Al-Pac to start a mill "which will supply customers in North America, Europe, and Asia," meeting "the strictest environmental standards by employing advanced, environmentally safe technology. Al-Pac harvests around 0.25% of its total area annually and all harvested areas will be reforested."

[Bill Asenjo Ph.D. ]

RESOURCES

BOOKS

Marx, M. J. The Mitsubishi Campaign: First Year Report. Rainforest Action Network, San Francisco, 1993.

Mitsubishi Corporation Annual Report 1996. Mitsubishi Corporation, Tokyo, 1996.

Wakker, E. "Mitsubishi's Unsustainable Timber Trade: Sarawak." In Restoration of Tropical Forest Ecosystems. L. and M. Lohmann, eds. Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1993.

PERIODICALS

Marshall, G. "The Political Economy of the Logging: The Barnett Inquiry into Corruption in the Papua New Guinea Timber Industry," The Ecologist 20, no. 5 (1990).

Neff, R., and W. J. Holstein. "Mitsubishi is on the Move," Business Week, September 24, 1990.

World Rainforest Report XII, no. 4 (October-December 1995). San Francisco: Rainforest Action Network.