ENVIRONMENT-JAPAN: Wood Imports Soar as Local Forests Flourish

By Suvendrini Kakuchi Reprint | | Print |

Suvendrini Kakuchi

TOKYO, Feb 23 1996 (IPS) - Japan’s huge appetite for wood would be better served by cutting down its own trees rather than through major timber imports from the fast depleting forests of South-east Asia, say environmentalists.

They say the world’s single largest importer of wood has vast, untouched forests, that once properly managed, could virtually satisfy Japan’s domestic needs and at the same time help to curb indiscriminate logging by supplier nations in the region.

“Many of Japan’s forests have now grown to full capacity and experts believe these forests can provide enough timber for the nation’s needs,” explained Professor Minoru Kumazaki who teaches forest management at Tsukuba University in Tokyo.

“But,” he added, “the irony of the situation is that Japanese timber remains too expensive to be used in Japan. Construction companies continue to rely on cheap imports earning the wrath of environmentalists.”

Kumazaki was among more than 800 environmentalists, concerned citizens, and forest-owners who met in Tokyo last weekend to discuss ways to make better use of Japan’s forests.

“The conference was the first concrete step to re-focus attention on Japanese forests. We aim at developing our forests and making them competitive with foreign timber,” explained Nobuo Watari, director of the National Land Afforestation Promotion Organisation — a private environmental movement.

Heavy logging in South-east Asia, which until recently supplied more than 60 per cent of Japan’s timber imports, has taken a huge bite out of the region’s forests, home to a number indigenous people and wild-life species.

Moreover, research has shown that much of the timber taken from Asia’s shrinking rainforests that is made into furniture for the Japanese market, ends up in the garbage dump after only a few years of use.

Research by the Sarawak Conservation Campaign (SCC), a grassroots environmental organisation, has revealed that such wasteful consumption patterns in Japan are a major cause of the depletion of the region’s tropical jungles.

That has drawn vociferous criticism from environmental groups and has seen Japan shift its import focus, with most of its timber now coming from Siberia and the Russian Far East and the United States.

In the meanwhile, in Japan’s hinterlands, the forests are flourishing with the domestic construction and furniture industries preferring to import cheap timber rather than make use of expensive Japanese wood.

High labour costs, coupled with the fact that Japanese forests are in mountainous regions, push up the prices of Japanese wood. Reduced tariffs also allow the imported wood to come in at better than competitive prices.

Most of the Japanese wood on the domestic market comes from sugi and hinoki, two species of pine. The higher quality hinoki costs twice that of Asian varieties.

“An open market economy actually encourages Japan to import timber which destroys prime forests all over the world,” said Kumazaki.

Sugi timber is more competitively priced, but the Japanese variety is considered inferior in quality to that which is imported with many local builders complaining that it is not as strong.

It is against this background that last weekend’s conference was held, with delegates concluding that the Japanese authorities will seriously have to devise ways to encourage the use of the local product.

Limited subsidisation of the industry is one possibility; offering low-interest loans to builders using the local product was another suggestion.

Another problem facing the Japanese timber industry is that forestry has become an ageing profession — that is the younger generation would rather work in Tokyo’s business environment rather than in the open air.

“The average Japanese forester is 50 years old, parents who find it hard to maintain effective forest management policies,” explains Watari.

And, adds Watari, effective forest management will be key to sustainable logging in Japan where more than 60 per cent of the forests are privately managed.

“People must realise the importance of their forests for pure drinking water, fresh air and, even relieving of stress, a problem that so many Japanese people must deal with,” he said.

But for the moment, it is not a question of bad management, with more than 50 per cent of the country under forest cover. Rather, it is the need to encourage Japanese industry to buy local.

“With pressure continuing on Japan to reduce timber tariffs in accordance with world trade liberalisation and with Japanese companies insisting on buying cheap wood, this system is going to take a long while to reform,” Kumazaki said.