Japanese Trade and Consumption of Tropical Timber Resources

9/24/97
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RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:

Title: Japanese Trade and Consumption of Tropical Timber Resources
Source: Keith Ball <9521569@student.ul.ie>
Ballyhourigan,
Killoscully,
Newport,
Co. Tipperary
Republic of Ireland
Status: Contact source for reprint permissions
Date: 9/24/97

Dear All,

This is my Master dissertation which I have been working on
since about January. It has taken far too long to write. I wonder how
much forest has been lost since I began. All comments are very welcome
except that I may at any time be "cut off" from the e-mail World due to
the fact that I may soon no longer be officially at the University. I
hope however to continue on to do a PhD although if this happens I may
try to go into the more general problem the inability of economic
systems and theories to reflect or take account of environmental values
and, most importantly, the ways in which this can be changed. I believe
however, that the most important points are already in this
dissertation.

At the moment it looks as though the tables may not go by e-mail. I
will send the text first, if anyone wants to see the tables, I will send
them by post.

My postal address is:

Ballyhourigan,
Killoscully,
Newport,
Co. Tipperary
Republic of Ireland

INSTALLMENT 1: Titles, Contents, etc.
Title: Present Trends in Japanese Consumption of and Trade in,
the Tropical Timber Resources of Southeast Asia,and the Ramifications
these have for her Future Role in the Management of the Global Environment.


Name: Keith William Ball


Award: Master of Arts In Japanese Studies


University: University of Limerick, Republic of Ireland


Supervisor: Thomas McAuley PhD


Submitted To The University Of Limerick, September,1997

Contents:

Acronyms and abbreviations

List of Tables and Figures

List of abbreviations used in the tables

Acknowledgments

Abstract

Preface

Page


1. Introduction
1

2. Japanese imports of tropical timber
15

3. Japanese consumption of tropical timber
32

4. Japanese log imports from PNG
45

5. Japanese government and industry monitoring procedures,
policies and policy initiatives connected with or aimed at reducing
tropical deforestation
50

6. Conclusions
59

7. Appendix: E-Mail message from BCS in reply to my inquiries
67

8. Bibliography
68

ACRONYMS AND ABBREVIATIONS:

BCS (Japan) Building Contractors Society

CINTRAFOR Centre for International Trade in Forest Products

EPA (Japan) Economic Planning Agency

FAO (United Nations) Food and Agriculture Organisation

GFCA Gaia Forest Conservation Archives

ha hectare

ITTO International Tropical Timber Organisation

ITTA International Tropical Timber Agreement

JACIC Japan Construction Information Centre

JAWIC Japan Wood-Products Information and Research Centre

JETRO Japan External Trade Organisation

MAFF (Japan) Ministry of Agriculture Forestry and Fisheries

MITI (Japan) Ministry of International Trade and Industry

MOC (Japan) Ministry of Construction

MoFA (Japan) Ministry of Foreign Affairs

MT Metric Ton

MTC Malaysian Timber Council

NGO Non-Governmental Organisation

NIES (Japan) National Institute for Environmental Studies

NW Nikkei Weekly

ODA (Japanese) Overseas Development Assistance

PNG Papua New Guinea

RWE Round-wood Equivalent

SCC Sarawak Campaign Committee (Japanese NGO)

SPWP Secondary Processed Wood Product

UNCED United Nations Conference on Environment and Development

WIR Wood-in-the-Rough

WTO World Trade Organisation

Tables and figures:

Tables
page
Table 1a: Imports of ITTO Consumers
1992-1996.......................................... 12
Table 1b: Japan's Tropical Timber Imports for
1988-1996..................................12
Table 1c: Japan's Share of ITTO Consumers Imports
1992 - 1996.......................12
Table 2.1.a: Japan's Domestic log production by type of
tree................................24
Table 2.1.b: Japanese industrial roundwood
production.......................................24
Table 2.2 a: Japan's industrial roundwood imports from all
sources 1993..............25
Table 2.2.b: Major Exporters to Japan of industrial roundwood
1993.....................25
Table 2.2.c: Japan's imports of wood-products from all
regions 1993....................26
Table 2.2.d: Major Exporters to Japan of wood-products
1993..............................26
Table 2.2.e: Tropical Proportion of Japan's timber Imports in
1994...(included in text on p19)
Table 2.2.f : Major exporters of forest products to Japan
1993..............................27
Table 2.2.g: The value of Japan's imports of forest products
compared to those of the US Europe and the World
1993............................................27
Table 2.3.a: Japan's Imports of Tropical Timber by country of
origin 1995............28
Table 2.3.b: Japan's tropical log Imports 1994-1995 by
country of origin...............28
Table 2.3.c.1: The approximate value of Japan's Imports of
Tropical Timber from major suppliers
1995....................................................................
.29
Table 2.3.c.2: The approximate RWE of Japan's Imports of
Tropical Timber from major suppliers
1995....................................................................
.29
Table 2.3.d: Value, Volume and Unit Value of Imports of
Tropical Timber by Major ITTO Consumers in
1995...............................................................30
Table 2.3.e Major ITTO Importers of tropical Secondary
Processed Wood Product's and Forest Products
1994...............................................................31
Table 3.1.a Japanese domestic log production by use
1975-1995........................ 43
Table 3.1.b Japanese domestic production of wood-products
1993................... 44
Table 3.2.a: Production, Imports and Consumption of Tropical
Timber by Japan 1992-
1996...............................................................
..................... 45
Table 3.2.b: Changes in Production, Imports and Consumption
of Tropical Timber by Japan
1992-1996...............(included in text on
p19).....................
Table 3.3: Japan's Plywood Production
1975-1994...................... .......... .........45
Table 4: The percentages of World and PNG
production of non-coniferous roundwood consumed as fuelwood and traded
1993..........................
47

Figures

Figure 1.1: Japan's Timber Supplies A Fast Transition: the Move from
Domestic Timber Supply to
Imports.................................................................
...........13
Figure 1.2: Changes in the Geographical Pattern of Tropical Hardwood
Supply to Japan
1965-1987...............................................................
....................... 14
Figure 3 Japan's imports of tropical timber (RWE)
compared to housing starts.............. 42
Figure 4.1 PNG's industrial roundwood production and
exports (1982-1996) and Japan's imports from PNG
(1990-1996).............................................................
......... 48
Figure 4.2 Japanese imports of logs from PNG and Malaysia
(1990-1996)....................................... 49

Abbreviations used in the tables:
C Coniferous NC Non-coniferous *
unofficial
M Metric Tons F FAO estimate (I) ITTO
estimate

Acknowledgments:

I should like to thank the following persons who have, in one way or
another, assisted in the completion of this dissertation. Tom McAuley
(my supervisor), Sean Cassidy and Paddy Williams for stimulating
discussions and very useful contacts, Uramoto Mihoko and Takayama Gaku
of the SCC for taking the time and trouble to answer all my English
e-mail enquiries and to the latter for sending me back issues of Mori no
Koe and to all the other Japanese people belonging to the various
organisations which I contacted and who did their best to help me in
spite of the language problems. Many others replied to my e-mail
enquiries. "SJ" of ITTO and Rose Braden of CINTRAFOR were particularly
helpful. Apologies to Jo Burgess who I nagged by e-mail (re errors in
Barbier 1994 et al). Thanks are especially due such as Glen Barry of
GCFA and Brian Brunton of Greenpeace who collect and disseminate
information hoping that it will be seen and acted upon. Thanks also to
Peter Dauvergne for kindly sending me two of his previous articles
during the time we were awaiting publication of his book Shadows in the
Forest, to Eoin Stephenson for photographs, to all the Library and ITD
staff at UL, especially Mai McGurk and Patrick O'Hora. Finally, thanks
also to my wife for proofreading and patience. All errors and omissions
are of course, my own responsibility.

ABSTRACT:

This dissertation consists of the following. First, by way of
introduction, an enumeration is given of the principal reasons for
valuing the tropical rain forests, an overview is given, insofar as this
is can be done, of the current state of tropical deforestation and its
causes, some of the issues involved will be discussed and then follows a
sketch of the history of the Japanese import trade in Asian tropical
timber. Placing particular emphasis on tropical supplies, Chapter 2
describes the structure of Japan's sources of timber. Again, against
the background of Japan's wood-economy in general, Chapter 3 attempts to
deal with the extent to which, and why, change is occurring in Japanese
tropical timber consumption patterns. Particular attention is paid to
plywood in general and to the use of konpane (concrete shuttering
panels) in the Japanese construction industry. At the end of Chapters
1,2 and 3 are tables of relevant statistics. Chapter 4 briefly
describes the recent trend toward increased imports from Papua New
Guinea (PNG). Chapter 5 begins with a critical description of the most
prominent international initiatives which are designed to combat future
damage to the natural forests of tropical countries. The same is then
done with respect to the policies and policy initiatives of Japanese
government and industry. The conclusion consists of an assessment of
these policies and of the extent to which they are likely to be
effective.

Preface

As it is intended that the subject-matter of this dissertation fall
within the field of Japanese Studies, it will often appear that Japan is
being singled-out for particular criticism. It should however be noted
that in the author's view, Japan's below-described heavy consumption of
tropical timber is largely consistent with the "rules" of a World
economic order, operating with the backing of a grossly inadequate
theory of efficiency, in which, in particular, short-term planning
criteria dominate and which, inadvertently or otherwise, contrives both
to seriously undervalue natural resources useful to man as well as to
attach virtually no value whatsoever to parts of the biosphere that have
no apparent human use. This economic order has evolved largely
within, and is supported by, the West. Likewise, any dismissal by
Asian commentators of indigenous forest cultures as of little worth by
comparison to those of modern developed economies, is of course, highly
reminiscent of earlier European colonial attitudes.
An important part of what is argued rests on the available production,
trade and other statistics provided by the Food and Agriculture
Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations, the International Tropical
Timber Organisation (ITTO) and the Japanese Ministry of Agriculture
Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF). Apparent differences of procedure
between these various bodies have resulted in occasionally serious
discrepancies between theoretically identical quantities. This is
particularly the case with regard to some of the MAFF* data. The
matter is complicated by the nature of the medium of presentation of
some of these statistics. In the case of ITTO 1996a* and MAFF*, the
tables used are electronic so that where reference to a possible error
is made in this dissertation, it could well be that subsequent users may
view corrected versions. It is also not infrequently the case to find a
particular electronic source "down". In spite of these serious
disadvantages, the network sources have provided the most up-to-date,
and some of the most comprehensive and relevant of the data referred to
in the text. Moreover, it should be added that errors were found in
book form also. One group of these is clearly the result of a printing
error, the other, referred to below on page 24 which appears to involve
a very significant degree of inconsistency, is more difficult to
explain. It is the author's belief that none of these apparent errors
seriously affects the overall conclusions.

Chapter 1: Introduction

"Over the past three decades, Japan's increasingly
ravenous appetite for tropical timber has left many of the vast forests
that once blanketed Southeast Asia on the brink of extinction.
Japanese trading conglomerates have moved from nation to nation
across much of the region, setting up shop wherever forests can be
logged cheap, often with the connivance of local officials. The
latest target is Papua New Guinea, home of one of the last major
tropical forests in the world."

News item (by-line Donald MacIntyre)

It is still fairly common to meet people, among whom number even some
educated persons, who's immediate reaction, when the subject is raised,
is that the debate over the fate of the rain forests is one between
aesthetics on the one hand and hard economic reality on the other.
"Pretty scenery" and interesting but useless wildlife are contrasted
with much more serious considerations such as the alleviation of
poverty, economic development and human advance in general. Some of the
criticisms implied by such juxtapositions will be briefly addressed in
this introduction, but first it is necessary to draw to attention the
reasons for holding the World's tropical rain forests to be not only
beautiful, fascinating and worthwhile in themselves but as being highly
valuable and, in all likelihood, essential, to man's economic systems
and, insofar as this is a separate matter, to his very existence.

For their role in providing the animal kingdom with oxygen, the tropical
rain forests have been described as the "lungs of the World".
Moreover, by the complementary process of carbon dioxide absorption they
partially mitigate the effects of greenhouse gas emissions. Tropical
rain forests, which cover perhaps six percent of the Earths' land
surface, are home to more than half of all plant and animal species.
Functions as these seem too fundamental to life on Earth for us to
reduce them to economic terms. The term "service function" is,
however, employed in order to express the value of natural ecosystems to
economic systems. Such natural systems are not "captured" by
standard economic analysis and as such have ostensibly no value.
However, as they make human economic activity possible, they should, on
the contrary, be regarded as priceless. As Costanza et al put it:
"The economies of the Earth would grind to a halt without the services
of ecological life-support systems, so in one sense their total value to
the economy is infinite."

This quote is taken from a recent article in the journal Nature in which
Costanza et al attempt, in spite of their remark about the "infinite"
value of ecosystems, to calculate, by means of a synthesis of past
research, the "incremental" or "marginal" value to the global economy,
of ecosystem services. The resulting picture yields a range of figures
between US$16trillion and US$54trillion per year; this compares with
the annual Global GDP of about US$18 trillion per year. The authors
add that because of uncertainties this range should be regarded as a
minimum. As one commentator put it, "it may be wrong, but at least it's
a start".

For the tropical forests, Costanza et al give an average figure of
US$2,007 per hectare per year and a total global flow value of
US$3.813trillion per year. These figures make them among the most
highly-valued ecosystems on Earth, both in terms of value per hectare
but also in absolute terms. Almost half their value, $922per ha. per
year, is held to derive from nutrient cycling; by comparison, their role
as a source of raw materials, including timber, is valued at only
US$315per ha. per year. Erosion control and climate regulation are the
other two important categories yielding figures of US$245per ha. per
year and US$223 per ha. per year respectively, and in these two respects
the tropical forests are by far the most important ecosystems. The
recreational value including that to tourism, is estimated to be US$112
per ha. per year.

In the category of raw materials we should include many non-timber
commodities, not only those of the traditional type such as rattan,
rubber, skins, furs, and natural medicines but genetic resources, of
which those used in medicines are presently the most important . It is
very likely that forest destruction is denying us forever, the chance to
make vast numbers of useful new discoveries. We should also add that
many of the resources with which we are already familiar, to which we at
present may attach economic value or, alternatively, disregard
economically, are likely, in the light of new technologies, cultural
developments, tastes and fashions, to be valued differently in the
future. We can add to the "practical" reasons for preserving the
World's rain forests, their value to Science; in particular to the life
sciences and to Anthropology.

The remarks made so far then, are intended to show that we should view
the destruction of natural ecosystems in general and tropical rain
forests in particular, as of great and negative consequence, even from
the perspective of those, who, being primarily concerned with the
welfare and development of modern man, might be inclined to dismiss
respect for tribal cultures and concern for wildlife as mere
sentimentalism.

It is by now well known that deforestation within the World's three
great tropical rain forest regions, in Central and West Africa, in
Central and South America and in South East Asia is proceeding very
quickly. The "alarmist" predictions of ten to fifteen years ago have,
as Nectoux points out, been too conservative. In spite of the
possibilities provided by satellite technology, data collection is still
inadequate and there are some differences in the definition of
"deforestation". Nevertheless, the figure for 1981-90, given by the FAO
who, as described below, use what may be described as a "tight"
definition of deforestation, is 4,900,000 hectares or 49,000sq km per
year. A figure given in the Nikkei Weekly is 154,000sq km annually.
This is the equivalent, it is pointed out, of an area 40 percent the
size of Japan; or more than twice the size of Ireland. Moreover, there
is little sign that the situation is improving. In a jointly-published
fact sheet, the Worldwide Fund for Nature and the World Bank state:

"Despite lengthy consultations among governments, and rising concerns
from the public since the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, deforestation has
increased dramatically in the past 5 years. Tropical forests are
disappearing at the rate of nearly one percent per year,........."

It is often stated that logging cannot be regarded as being the
principal direct cause of deforestation. Studies which wholly or in
part support such findings are often referred to in literature produced
by timber trade interests. Much depends however on the definition of
"deforestation" employed. Using for example the FAO definition, which
is perhaps the most frequently used and which requires that crown cover
be depleted to less than 10% before an area can be deemed "deforested",
yields a global figure for deforestation caused by forestry of 10%.
Using on the other hand "forest modification" as our definition,
forestry accounts for 71% across all major tropical countries.
Whichever definition one chooses, it is undoubtedly true that there are
other very major contributing factors in the process of deforestation.
Of these, probably the most important is the high proportion of the
local population living in poverty, who, in many cases encouraged by
their governments, which in turn, may be acting with the support of, for
example, the World Bank, are able to survive only by "slash and burn"
agriculture. Very often this practice is a highly unsatisfactory
solution to the problem of poverty. Soil humus unprotected by the
shading effect of the high crown cover of trees of the natural forest,
is heated to well above the 250C at which it begins to break down. Many
re-settlement programmes fail and there is also the recurrent problem of
fires, started in order to clear land for agriculture, burning out of
control,. Delicate, highly diverse ecosystems which have supported man
himself and which may have taken millions of years to evolve give way to
barren, sun-scorched "red-desert".

It should be added however that there are some success stories and that
some land previously covered by tropical forests is considered suitable
for agriculture. Also, there has been some reforestation. This latter
is though, considered at best controversial by environmentalists. One
problem is that timber can be sold as "environmentally friendly" or from
"sustainable sources", when in fact, a highly diverse old-growth forest
ecosystem has been cleared to make way for fast-growing plantation trees
such as Acacia or Eucalyptus, which in no way compare in terms of their
ability to support other life forms, and, in particular, which are
entirely useless in terms of their ability to support human
forest-dwelling cultures. When these plantations do not displace
previous natural forest, they do however, as Marchak points out, have
the advantage that they may replace some of the timber otherwise lost
from the latter.

It is perhaps a common misconception that timber imports by rich
industrial countries form the bulk of the trade in tropical timber.
Internal trade, that is domestic consumption by producer countries
forms the greatest part. India, for example, which hardly figures in
terms of the international trade, is the fourth largest producer of logs
classed as tropical. In 1996 India produced 15 million m3 of logs but
in order to meet domestic demand needed to import a further 200,000
cubic metres. In 1996 ITTO log production totalled 126.8 million
cubic metres. Of this, less than half, 48 million in round-
wood equivalent (RWE) were imported directly by ITTO consumers.
There are other causes of deforestation which operate both directly and
indirectly. Mining activity is a common example. Here, the actual
forest area cleared to create room for road and other construction
associated with the operation is likely to be small. However, quantities
of timber cut for pit props may be substantial. Often more
significantly, there are the indirect results, especially of road
construction and of the influx of manpower. Prospective settlers
clearly have a tendency to take the easiest route into the forest and to
populate the fringes of roads, no matter for what purpose such roads
have been constructed. So it is indeed that highways built for
improvement of infrastructure, perhaps financed by development
assistance, can also be regarded as inducing forest loss. Sometimes
such construction can be related to political factors. Roads and
settlements may be located in remote internal areas, but also, and in
particular, along frontiers, in order, in the case of the former, to
reduce the impression of 'backwardness', while, in the case of the
latter, to demonstrate to rival powers that they should not forget to
whom the territory belongs.

What has been said above about other causes of deforestation should not,
however, lead us to deny that logging for the export trade is an
extremely important direct cause of deforestation; as Southeast Asia
presents us with probably the best examples that this is so, we shall
however leave this topic until later. Moreover, we should not forget,
that aside from its direct effects, the indirect consequences of logging
follow a pattern entirely similar to those of other major operations.
Indeed, as an additional point, we can extrapolate from this and safely
assume that many permutations of types of economic activity exist, in
which logging for the export trade forms just one link, albeit in many
cases the initial link, in a chain of events which result in forest
destruction.

We do have to answer the arguments which say that logging, by its direct
contribution to economies, by providing employment in wood-related
industries, export earnings and other associated benefits, is of great
value to tropical timber producing nations, the vast majority of which
are within the developing World. To answer these arguments then, there
are several points which should be made.

First, there is much evidence that timber producing countries are, on
the whole, far from maximising rent capture. Moreover, using Barbier et
al's definition of "socially efficient" , that is, taking into account
the costs incurred as a result of environmental degradation, by a
producer nation, rather than just those incurred in timber harvesting,
the net result can be a large loss. Second, timber concessions tend to
be extremely short term, thus providing little incentive to
concessionaires to employ good timber management practices. Third,
subsidies and other market distortions are encouraging forest conversion and
degradation. Fourth, as Marchak andothers have pointed out, there is much
evidence of corrupt and illegal practices both within timber-producing
countries and in connection with trade. These practices have tended to assist
in the undervaluing of timber resources. Fifth, where government re-settlement
schemes, which may follow a logging operation, are involved, it is often the
case that these fail. Poverty continues and perhaps this is not surprising
given that, as many argue, such schemes are devised principally as a way of
attempting to alleviate poverty without threatening the wealth and power
of small, governing elites. Sixth, and as an ad hominem argument, we
should perhaps also mention that the most vociferous defenders of the
timber trade are usually those who have most to gain from the status
quo.

But finally, it is once again work such as that of Costanza et al which
provides us with the most powerful arguments. This is partly because
those countries to whom forests are lost, and their near neighbours too,
are the first to be affected by deforestation-induced soil erosion,
flooding and changes in micro climate. Loss of mangrove forest
ecosystems provides another example. Mangrove forests are evolved to
half-sea half-land conditions and provide protection to coastal areas
from the ravages of heavy seas whipped up by violent tropical storms.
When they are destroyed, local economies are disrupted and human
populations are put at increased risk. Producer countries also loose
out by virtue of the more general problem that under the present
economic order, the huge benefits provided by the tropical forests to
the global community and economy are simply not taken into account.
This is what was meant above by a "World economic order operating with
the backing of a grossly inadequate definition of efficiency". This is
an economic system under which it may be deemed profitable, and
therefore "efficient" to destroy, and at an astonishing rate, part of
the very foundation of its own existence. Not only do producer
countries, like all others, lose out in this process, they are also, at
least under one possible arrangement, missing out on potentially vast
amounts of compensation, which could be paid by richer nations, for
leaving forests intact.

Among the reasons for studying the relationship between tropical
deforestation and the Japanese wood-economy, two are particularly
compelling. First, Japan is by far the biggest importer of tropical
timber, consuming a RWE of 18,367,000 m3 in 1996 or 38.1percent of total
ITTO consumption. That Japan's consumption of tropical timber is so
high is explained largely by its low cost to a powerful economy.
Therefore, in spite of the fact that most tropical timber, which is
mostly hardwood, can be considered high in quality, there is no
"economic" reason for Japanese consumers to be mindful of the need to
optimise use. The highly durable products for which it is best used,
account for a part of consumption but much also is wasted. The best
known and most important of these wasteful uses is as konpane, concrete
shuttering panels. These are the wooden forms into which concrete is
poured. Once the concrete has set the forms are removed. With care and
good design they can be re-used many times but this has not been the
norm. There is also much scope for improvement in the design of
buildings, particularly with respect to extending their use-life.
(Konpane will be discussed in greater detail at the end of Chapter 3.)
Second, as the World's second largest economy, Japan's status as
economic super-power carries with it a considerable degree of
responsibility with regard to the future management of global
environmental problems.

Japanese government agencies and Japanese industry are among those well
aware of the serious nature of the problem and of the rate of tropical
deforestation. On the 25th November 1996, an advertisement in the
Nikkei Weekly hailed the establishment of a reforestation project on the
small Indonesian Island of Lombok. The project is backed by eleven
leading Japanese companies. "Are you aware" the text asks "that
tropical rain forests are disappearing at the rate of 154,000km2 per
year."

The Internet site of JETRO carries a report on the efforts by the Japan
Plywood Manufacturers Association to develop alternatives to konpane; in
doing so, the report acknowledges the urgency of the problem of
tropical deforestation. Again, at the international level, as the 18th
signatory to Agenda 21 of the UN Conference on Development and the
Environment (UNCED), Japan has made a commitment to assist in global
efforts to reduce and to halt tropical deforestation.
Here are two more examples, taken from the Japan Diplomatic Blue Books
of years 1996 and 1994 respectively, of official Japanese awareness of
the extent and seriousness of the "destruction of the global
environment".

"The destruction of the global environment, though it may not be readily
apparent at the present time, will, unless dealt with from a long term
perspective, pose an imminent threat in several decades, or within the
next 100 years."

"First, the global environment issues have global scale effects
transcending national borders and there is a need for the international
community to take concerted action. Japan needs to take active
initiatives in the efforts of the international community at the United
Nations and the OECD on the problems of climatic changes, depletion of
the ozone layer, deprivation of bio-diversity, destruction of forests,
desertification and various endangered species.",

Such declarations however must inevitably be seen in the light of
Japan's dominance of the World trade in tropical hardwoods. This
dominance is, however, owing to geographical factors, even more
pronounced in Asia. We now look more closely at Japan's role in Asian
deforestation.

When the first Europeans arrived, virtually the whole of SE Asia was
covered with rain forest, some of which may have been ten million years
old. Millions of people lived here engaging in shifting (swidden)
cultivation which, with its long rotations enabled forest land
sufficient time to recover before being used again. Colonisation brought
plantation which not only converted coastal forest areas to agricultural
use but also caused many inhabitants to flee to upland areas which in
turn became overpopulated so that these forests too, no longer given
sufficient time to re-generate, began to become degraded. By the second
World War, those parts of SE Asia most accessible to Western colonisers
had already lost much of their natural vegetation. The period since
then however, has seen by far the most extensive loss of forest. In
this time, the process of deforestation in Thailand and the Philippines
has been almost completed. In peninsular Malaysia less than 10 percent
of present forest cover is classed as natural, while the Malaysian
States, Sabah and Sarawak, both on the island of Borneo, have undergone
and are (in the case of Sarawak) undergoing perhaps the most rapid and
intensive logging-related deforestation ever seen. Even Indonesia,
which has by far the most forested land of the region, has begun to see
a very substantial reduction in total tree cover. Deforestation in
Asia is now proceeding faster than in any other of the World's tropical
rain forest regions.

As is the case in other parts of the World, though much of this
deforestation is caused, at least on the face of it, primarily by
non-timber related processes, huge areas are being logged, and, giving
as this does, natural regeneration no chance, the term "mining" has, not
entirely inappropriately, frequently been applied. Despite
protestations to the contrary, from parts of the timber industry, large
numbers of native peoples have suffered loss of their livelihood and
their way-of-life. There has been resistance which has received the
support of and publicity from NGO's in consumer countries including
Japan. In areas where logging has occurred, many violent incidents have
been reported. Moreover, as far as brutal suppression of this
resistance is concerned, we may be witnessing the tip of the iceberg.
Marchak, for example, points out the strong connections between
Indonesian forestry concessions on the one hand, and the Indonesian
military, on the other; bearing in mind the experience of East Timor,
such connections have sinister overtones.

A general point brought out by the Asian experience of deforestation is
that the above-mentioned greater regional rate, as compared with that of
South America and Africa, is matched by a far greater rate in the
percentage of timber exported and this is prima facie evidence
supporting confirmation of the common sense view, and the testimony of
those with direct experience in affected areas, that a reduction in the
volume of timber exports would result in a significant drop in rates of
deforestation and degradation.

Japanese imports of timber from the "South Seas", have shot up in the
period since the Pacific War, during which and in the period immediately
following, Japan had become desperately short of resources. Its domestic
forests were severely depleted for the purposes of fuel-wood and
construction timber. As conditions gradually improved, a National
programme of reforestation was established . Nevertheless, as
economic growth proceeded, at a pace surpassing all expectations, so
Japanese forestry became more and more "uneconomic". The comparative
advantages attributable to the low labour costs of her tropical Asian
neighbours, together with the fact that the timber resources there were
not being managed but rather "mined", so that none of the overheads
usually associated with silviculture were incurred, meant that for the
Japanese, timber imports were the cheapest option. In fact, this was so
apparent to the government, that a policy directed at promoting imports
was adopted.

In line with this policy, imports rose from around 5% in 1955 to between
60% and 70% for the period 1975 to 1985 (Figure 1.1.b). Restricting
our attention to tropical hardwoods and following the course of this
post-war history of Japanese timber imports, we find that total imports
were highest in the 1970's during which, apart from 1975, they remained
above twenty million m3 per annum, peaking at around 27 million m3 in
1973 (Figure 1.2). Also, a pattern emerges with regard to the principal
suppliers and the resulting picture is not altogether dissimilar to that
given in the news item quoted at the beginning of this dissertation.
That is, Japan's tropical hardwood supplies for the period 1965 to 1987
came principally from the Philippines, Indonesia, Sabah and Sarawak and,
that each of these exporters, approximately in the order given, has
dominated at different times. More recent figures compiled by the
Japanese NGO, the Sarawak Campaign Committee, confirm that Sarawak, at
least in 1995, has become the dominant supplier of raw logs to the
Japanese market, exporting 3,902,000 m3 out of a total of 6,455.

The major reasons for these switches of supply sources on the part of
Japanese importers have been on the one hand, as exemplified by the case
of the Philippines, severe reduction in resources which in turn gave
rise to log-export bans, while on the other, as exemplified by the case
of Indonesia, a desire on the part of the exporting nation to protect
its own wood product industries, of which that of the plywood industry
is the most important, by restricting the supply of raw materials to
competitors the most important of which has been Japan. Environmental
considerations may have played some role in these decisions though it
seems more likely that they were used in justification for them rather
than as forming their chief rationale.

Most timber exporting countries in the region have imposed log export
bans, not all of which have been permanent. It is almost certainly for
this reason that logging in Sarawak is, as mentioned above, now so
severe, for, as one after the other sources of supply of raw logs to the
Japanese market have either been exhausted or cut, it is those countries
or states which, like Sarawak, have no such ban, inevitably attract the
attentions of the logging companies. General resource depletion
together with these bans are undoubtedly the principal reasons why Japan
and logging companies from other Asian countries have begun to obtain
more of their supplies of tropical logs from outside SE Asia.

Japan's imports of tropical timber however, form well under half of her
total wood supplies. In order to gain a better understanding of the
role of tropical timber in the Japanese market for timber therefore, in
the next two chapters, patterns in the recent trends of Japan's imports
and consumption of tropical timber are described within the context of
her total wood-economy.

Chapter 2: Japanese imports of tropical timber

At the beginning of this chapter an overview of the general structure of
Japan's wood imports is given. This involves a description of domestic
forest resources, wood production and imports of non-tropical forest
products as well as a closer look at and some comments concerning
tropical roundwood and tropical wood-product imports.

Although Japan's imports of tropical hardwoods exceed those of all other
nations, they do not exceed the quantities of timber she acquires from
other sources. To a large extent, Japanese forests have recovered from
the effects of war. In 1991 the total forest resources of Japan were
approximately 25 million ha or roughly two-thirds of the total land
area. This makes Japan one of the most forested countries in the World,
exceeded in this respect only by Finland. An important contributing
factor to this situation is undoubtedly Japan's mountainous topography
which makes other land uses difficult or impossible. According to the
Japanese Ministry of Agriculture Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) about
13.5 million ha., roughly 54 percent, is natural forest with about 10.3
million ha artificial and the remaining 1.2 million ha. classed as
"cutover". The most forested regions are Hokkaido and northern Honshu .

As a result of this recovery in forest resources domestic production is
once again making a major contribution to timber supplies. MAFF figures
put 1995 total domestic log production at 22,897,000m3 and although
this figure represents a decrease from the 34,155,000m3 produced in
1975, in terms of RWE it exceeds the total of imported tropical timber.
Out of a total log production of 24,456,000m3 in 1994, 19,090,000m3 or
78 percent, were softwoods, a significant increase from the 61 percent
1975 level. The largest quantities of logs were of Japanese cedar;
Japanese larch, Japanese cypress and Japanese red and black pines were
the other main species. Domestic roundwood production can be broken
down into the general categories used by the FAO as presented in table
2.1.b.

In terms of price, domestically produced timber is of high value
relative to timber from other sources. During the period from 1971 to
1987 for example, the price of Japanese cypress increased from around
35,000, to over 75,000 Yen per cubic metre. During this time timber
classed as "Java", also increased in price but these prices remained
between less than 5,000 and just over 40,000 Yen per cubic metre. These
two categories of timber finished this period at about 60,000 Yen and
about 28,000 Yen per cubic metre respectively. The ranges for this
period of prices for USA Douglas fir and for USSR Yeso spruce were
approximately the same as for "Java", though with less variation. By
contrast to that of Japanese cypress however, the price of Japanese red
and black pines remained low at between less than 5,000 and 30,000 Yen
per cubic metre and showed less fluctuation than any of the other four
categories mentioned.

In addition to tropical and domestic supplies of logs, Japan also
imports large quantities of other industrial roundwood,. In terms of
volume, in 1993, wood chips and particles were the most important
category, accounting for almost fifty percent. The main user of wood in
this form is the Japanese paper industry which uses it to manufacture
pulp. The country's shipping fleet includes specialised carriers and
Marchak attributes the initiation of the World trade in wood chips to
Japan. In 1993 the global trade in wood chips and particles was around
27,638,000m3 and Japan's imports 21,827,000m3 or about 79 percent of
the total. Chips and particles are a very cheap way for Japan to import
wood, at only $75 per cubic metre or about one third of the average
cost of the other important categories, they comprise only twenty-two
percent of Japan's national bill for imported industrial roundwood. The
other main class of non-tropical industrial roundwood is "industrial
roundwood-wood-in-the-rough (coniferous)" that is, coniferous logs.
Imports of over US$3 billion in 1993 made this the most significant
group in terms of total value. Japan also imported more than half a
million m3 of non-tropical hardwood logs. Taking into account these
other imports then, at 16.5 percent of the total volume, tropical
hardwood logs formed a relatively small proportion of Japan's total
roundwood imports. They were however the most highly valued of these
imports and so in this respect they made up 31.1 percent of the total.

For both coniferous logs and for chips and particles, the USA was the
dominant exporter of industrial roundwood to Japan. Especially
noteworthy however are the estimated four-and-a-half million m3 of
coniferous and the 400,000 hardwood logs imported from the Russian
Federation. More recent information, of particular relevance to this
dissertation, indicates that significant quantities of Russian logs are
being used for plywood production. The Japan Federation of Plywood
Manufacturers Associations predicted in April 1995 that conifer wood in
raw materials for plywood manufactured in Japan would be 19% in 1995, up
5 points from 1994. In terms of quantity, this would be 1.41 million
m3. As reported by the SCC, the breakdown according to exporter would
be as follows:

"Russian logs (primarily larch) 770,000m3 (650,000m3 in 1994); radiata
pine from New Zealand & Chile 330,000m3 (230,000m3 in 1994); North
American logs 70,000m3 (50,000m3 in 1994); domestic logs 40,000m3
(20,000m3 in 1994); conifer veneer from North American and other regions
200,000m3 (in roundwood equivalents). (SCC has not yet been able to
obtain the actual 1995 breakdown.) Source Nikkan Mokuzai Shimbun, 29
April 1995.",

As well as coniferous logs, Japan did of course import large amounts of
tropical logs, of which the main suppliers were Malaysia and Papua New
Guinea; these however, are treated in more detail later in this chapter.

We now turn to imports of wood products. Coniferous sawnwood, the
leading exporter to Japan of which was Canada, was the most important
category of these both in terms of volume and in terms of value, with
the USA also making an important contribution. The next category, again
both in terms of volume and in terms of value, was wood-based panels
with plywood, by far the most important sub-category. As mentioned in
Chapter One, Indonesia is the most important supplier to Japan of
plywood. It can be noted here though that since 1993 there has been an
increase in imports of non-tropical plywood. In 1995 for example, the
SCC reports plywood imports from Canada of 250,000m3, a more than
doubling of the 1993 figure. For 1996, JAWIC (Japan Wood-Products
Information and Research Centre) reports that most of the 11 percent
of plywood imported not from either Indonesia or Malaysia, was from
Canada or the United States.

Japan's imports, at 3,267,000m3, of wood pulp made this commodity the
third most important in respect of both quantity and value. By far the
most wood pulp came from North America with Canada and the USA exporting
roughly equal amounts . Once again coming largely from the USA and
Canada and accounting for almost as much of the cost of Japan's imports
of wood-products, though for considerably less of their volume than did
wood pulp, paper and paper-board imports were another very important
category. It should however be pointed out that the value of Japan's
exports of paper and paper board, at US$1,621million or 96.3 percent of
the total value of Japan's exports of wood-products, was in excess of
the value of her imports of these products. After plywood, the most
important wood-product category which includes a high percentage of
tropical timber was non-coniferous sawnwood, which, comprising
1,791,000m3, accounted for 11.7 percent of the total value of all
Japan's wood-product imports. Malaysia was the main supplier with
temperate hardwood imports from the USA making that country the second
largest exporter in this category; China was the third most important
exporter, while Indonesia was the second most important tropical
supplier of sawnwood. At around 10 percent, Japan's share of the value
of World imports of wood-products is very much lower than its share of
the value of World imports of industrial roundwood.

In the last few paragraphs we have seen how Japan's imports of tropical
timber for 1993 formed just one part of the total of her wood imports.
Table 2.2.e, which uses the categories employed by the ITTO,
illustrates how this was so with respect to 1994. In particular,
imports of wood chips, coniferous logs and coniferous sawnwood have kept
the tropical proportion of logs and sawnwood particularly low.

Table 2.2.e Tropical Proportion of Japan's timber Imports in 1994
(1000m3)

All Imports Tropical Imports Tropical Percentage

Logs 45,586 7,494 16.4
Sawnwood 10,717 1,257 11.7
Veneer 731 160 21.9
Plywood 4,074 3,777 92.7

The countries which benefited the most in 1993, in the sense that they
received the most total payments, from their timber exports to Japan
were the USA and Canada with Indonesia's plywood exports giving her
third place. A more accurate assessment of the benefits accruing to a
given country of its timber exports to Japan would clearly have to take
into account other factors such as the average unit value of its exports
and, particularly in the context of the present discussion, the actual
amount of timber being felled in order to produce an export commodity
and whether this timber is from old-growth forest or from plantation
forest.

Finally, before we come to focus our discussion of Japan's timber
imports on those of tropical origin alone, we should compare the value
of Japan's imports of forest products, "forest products" being the
universal name used by the FAO for all the timber commodities covered
thus far, to total World imports of forest products and to those of
other major importers. At 15.7 percent, Japan's share of the total
value of World forest product imports is comparatively low. This seems
especially true when one considers the country's 55.8 percent share of
the total value of World imports of industrial roundwood. As far then,
as the international timber trade as a whole is concerned, in 1993 at
least, Japan was still very much an importer of raw materials rather
than an importer of value-added products.

As this dissertation is concerned primarily with the effects on tropical
forests of Japanese timber consumption, when we come to examine patterns
of imports from tropical producers and the changes in these patterns, it
is important that we are able to make time-series comparisons with
regard to total volumes of timber imported. The strategy referred to
above, of Indonesia in particular, which aimed at increasing exports of
value-added products, has been very successful and this has complicated
the task of making such comparisons. The conversion coefficient used to
calculate the RWE of plywood varies according to the efficiency of the
processing plant. Nectoux 1990 states that recovery rates in many
developing nations are between forty and fifty percent. This
corresponds roughly with the conversion coefficient used by the FAO,
which is 2.3. Japanese plant, on the other hand, are quoted by Nectoux
1990, as being capable of up to eighty-two percent efficiency. However,
as far as the total RWE of tropical timber imported into Japan is
concerned, we already have figures for imports of raw tropical hardwood
logs into Japan (Table 1b) and we therefore need only concern ourselves
with the efficiency of overseas plant manufacturing plywood for the
Japanese market; as mentioned above, this is largely that of Indonesia
and Malaysia. The available information suggests that the use of FAO
conversion coefficients may not be wholly inappropriate to these two
countries and it is therefore these coefficients which are used. It
should however of course be borne in mind that error, resulting either
in over-estimation or in under-estimation of efficiency, and therefore
of the total RWE of Japan's imports of tropical timber, may be involved.
Finally, as a further consequence of these considerations, an increase
in the RWE of plywood made from tropical timber and used in Japan does
not necessarily mean that Japan has been totally unsuccessful in
reducing its use of such plywood.

Using then, the FAO's conversion coefficients together with data
provided by the ITTO and the SCC, the recent trends in Japan's tropical
timber imports, together with global figures for comparison were
presented in Tables 1a,b and c. The most striking features are the
decline in log imports and the complementary increase in plywood
imports. The main reasons for these changes were given in the
introduction: log export bans and determined promotion of wood
processing industries by producing countries. Table 1b suggests that in
terms of RWE Japanese imports of tropical timber have not declined;
indeed they may have increased slightly. From this we are able to
construct Table 1c which, assuming the validity of the above method,
shows that Japan's share of World imports of tropical timber has risen
from 34 percent in 1992 to 38.1 percent in 1996.

The switch from logs to plywood imports has meant that the value of
Japanese tropical timber imports has increased somewhat. This may have
helped the economies of producers to grow and has contributed to any
reduction in Japan's trade surplus. For these reasons we can speculate
that the increase in value-added wood-product imports from South East
Asia may also have helped to improve Japan's relations with these
countries. Table 2.3.a shows in detail the major suppliers to Japan of
each of the four ITTO categories of tropical timber. The importance of
Indonesian plywood has already been noted. Indonesia also supplies
thirty-five percent of Japan's sawnwood, though more than this,
forty-five percent is supplied by Malaysia.

A total of ninety-seven percent of all Japan's tropical logs came from
Malaysia and PNG combined, with Sarawak accounting for nearly all the
Malaysian exports which altogether made up sixty-eight percent. PNG
however, providing twenty-nine percent of Japan's tropical log imports,
was clearly the second most important supplier. Although Japan's total
imports of tropical logs has declined substantially, her share of World
imports of tropical logs increased from 43.9 percent in 1992 to 46.6
percent in 1996. All the remarks made about Japan's tropical timber
supplies, should however be qualified by consideration of the fact that
discrepancies frequently occur with respect to reported level of exports
on the one hand and reported level of imports on the other.,

A combined total of approximately ninety-five percent of the value of
Japan's imports of tropical timber in 1995 took the form of imports from
Malaysia, Indonesia and PNG. The value of imports from Malaysia, which
were spread the most evenly across all commodity groups, was the
largest, being marginally greater than the value of imports from
Indonesia, to which, as can be expected, the bulk of Japanese payments
was for plywood with a significant amount also for sawnwood. Although
Indonesia is by far still the dominant exporter of plywood to Japan,
Malaysia is beginning to erode this dominance somewhat. Imports from
PNG of any timber other than in the form of logs, was insignificant. In
view of this however and perhaps surprisingly, and of particular
relevance when considering policies which encourage the growth merely of
primary processing industries, the share each of the three major
exporters contributed to the total value of Japan's imports and the
equivalent shares of the total RWE of Japan's imports, were roughly
similar.

The strong tendency mentioned above for Japan, by comparison with other
major importers, to import timber in general as a raw material rather
than in the form of more valuable wood-products is also true with
specific regard to tropical timber. In 1995 for example, whereas the
European Union's total expenditure on tropical timber was nearly
three-quarters that of Japan, it paid well under half the amount than
did Japan for raw logs. Also, the total amount paid by the EU for
tropical plywood, which in this particular context, at $US471/m3, can be
regarded as a relatively cheap commodity, was proportionally less than
the amount paid by Japan. At $US651/m3 on the other hand, the
relatively expensive tropical sawnwood, was the largest item of
expenditure for the EU. The USA 's share of the value of tropical
forest product imports is much lower than its share of the total for all
forest products. Other Asian countries are, after Japan and the EU, the
main importers of tropical timber. Asian countries appear to follow
similar patterns, in terms of the commodity breakdown of their imports,
to Japan.

Before we go on, in the next Chapter, to discuss the use made in Japan
of forest products we should mention yet another form in which
specifically tropical timber can be imported; that is, in the form of
secondary processed wood products (SPWP's). According to the ITTO, the
most important of these are:

".....wooden furniture (the major category, accounting on average for
70% of trade values), builder's woodwork, products for
domestic/decorative use (table/kitchenware, ornaments picture frames,
etc.), packaging/pallets, coopers' products (casks, barrels, etc.) and
other manufactured products (tools, handles, brooms, shoe lasts, etc.)"
.

In terms of value these are even more important to tropical producers
than are forest products. Japan's share of the total value of ITTO
Consumer's imports of SPWP's is much lower than it's share of the total
value of ITTO Consumer's imports of forest products. Although the RWE
of SPWP's is obviously very difficult to calculate, it seems very likely
that the ratio of the value of SPWP's to the total amount of timber used
in their manufacture, is very much higher than it is for forest
products. This suggests further confirmation of Japan's position as an
importer of large quantities of cheap raw materials, rather than as an
importer of high-value-added products.

Chapter 3: Japanese Consumption of Tropical Timber

The utilisation of timber from all the sources covered in Chapter 2 is
now described in general terms. The uses of tropical timber are then
discussed in more detail. Finally, plywood in general and konpane in
particular are discussed.

Using FAO statistics for 1993, if we add together the 32,570,000m3
Japanese domestic roundwood production, the 45,489,000m3 of imported
roundwood and take into account that wood-product imports may be
converted into a RWE, we arrive at a figure for total Japanese
consumption of wood of over one hundred million m3. We can now move on
to discuss how this is used.

The consumption of wood chips in the paper industry has already been
noted and the use of pulpwood is mainly self-evident. We should in
addition mention that as well as the large amounts of industrial
roundwood used in the Japanese paper industry, Japan also has a very
high rate, over 50%, of paper re-cycling. Producing some 27,764,000MT
of paper and paper-board in 1993, the paper industry in Japan is of
enormous importance to the global wood-economy and as such probably
exerts an important indirect influence upon the trade in tropical
timber. Nevertheless, with some qualifications, one can say that
tropical timber is not generally used in the paper industry and for this
reason, from now on, we shall confine ourselves mainly to the non-paper
uses of timber. By contrast, non-paper uses of non-tropical timber,
especially those connected with construction, are closely related to the
uses of most tropical timber and therefore we shall include below some
general description of these.

As will be seen shortly, the general pattern that emerges is that
domestic and imported softwood forest products other than those used in
the paper industry are used primarily for the structural members of
timber framed buildings. Tropical hardwoods, on the other hand, are
used mainly for the manufacture of plywood, although substantial amounts
are used for other purposes. We will begin by describing the use of
domestically produced timber before going on to do the same for imported
timber.

It was previously noted that, depending on source, Japanese timber
production and trade statistics vary somewhat and so must be treated
with some caution. Nonetheless, as long as we do not forget this we
can use MAFF figures as a rough guide to the use of timber produced
domestically in Japan. As could be expected from the above-mentioned
reduction in domestic roundwood production, domestic wood-products which
utilise Japanese wood have also decreased in quantity. In all
categories of product output has decreased. The relative share of use
of each category appears, however, to have remained similar. The most
important use by far, of domestic timber is still sawnwood, which is
used principally in traditional timber-framed houses. In both absolute
and relative terms, such timber has however, owing not to any real
decline in the potential productivity of Japanese forests but to high
labour costs, the high costs of timber extraction due to Japan's
mountainous terrain and the low price of imported wood, become
increasingly expensive. There has therefore been a marked shift towards
the construction of concrete "blockhouses" which utilise cheap imports
of tropical timber for use as a construction tool.

In like manner to that of domestic coniferous roundwood, the most
important use of imported coniferous roundwood appears to be as the raw
material for coniferous lumber. Adding together the quantities for
1993 of domestically produced and imported coniferous roundwood yields a
total of 30,879,000m3. For the same year, total Japanese coniferous
sawnwood production was 23,298,000m3. Discounting such factors as the
using-up of stockpiled logs, if all available industrial coniferous
roundwood was processed into coniferous sawnwood, a conversion
coefficient of 1.3 would therefore be applicable. Even if the actual
rate were yet more efficient, this would still be consistent with a very
high rate of conversion of imported coniferous roundwood into coniferous
lumber. It is by no means the case however that all imported
coniferous roundwood is converted into sawnwood, for an increasing
amount is being used to replace some of the tropical hardwood used in
the manufacture of plywood. According to JAWIC the actual softwood
percentage of the raw material used to manufacture plywood in Japan in
1995 was 23.6% and had risen still further to as much as 32.8% by 1996.

To the coniferous lumber produced in Japan can be added the 8,835,000m3
imported. Disregarding the tiny amounts exported, such addition results
in a theoretical total combined consumption, plus or minus stockpiling,
for 1993, of around thirty-two million m3 of coniferous sawnwood. For
domestic coniferous sawnwood, using the quantities given in Nectoux 1990
for 1986, the following breakdown by use may be deduced: construction
79.9%, boxes and packaging 7.9%, furniture 4.7%, transport/others 4.4%
and engineering 3.2%. The equivalent figures for imported coniferous
sawnwood are very similiar: construction 79.7%, boxes and packaging
10.2%, furniture 3.8%, engineering 3.7% and transport/others 2.5%.

The uses by general category of tropical hardwood, the subject of which
will be returned to in a moment, are more easily ascertained because of
the availability of ITTO data. The uses to which coniferous
non-tropical sawnwood is put are more difficult to assess. Examination
of FAO production and trade statistics does not help us greatly here.
This is because in the FAO statistics, that component of the numerical
values representing the relatively small quantity imported of such wood,
is "hidden" among the values representing the much larger amounts of
imported tropical hardwoods. As we are mainly concerned with the latter
however, we need not let the subject of the use of temperate hardwoods
detain us further.

We now turn to focus attention upon the use of tropical timber in Japan.
Examination of the data for production of sawnwood, veneer and plywood
reveals clearly that the plywood industry is still, overwhelmingly, the
main user of Japan's imports of tropical logs. However, as it stands,
the data presents us with some problems. The decrease in imports of
tropical logs is not matched by a comparable decrease in the consumption
of logs. This is explained by the ITTO who report that:

"Japan maintains and consumes significant stockpiles of tropical logs
annually, accounting for the relatively high production levels of
sawnwood and plywood reported as compared to log consumption"

However, although this explanation may reflect what is actually taking
place, on the basis of the ITTO figures, we cannot draw the conclusion
the above quote suggests. This can be demonstrated by means of the
following table which summarises the relevant absolute and percentage
changes.

Table 3.2.b: Changes in Production, Imports and Consumption of Tropical
Timber by Japan 1992-1996(1000 m3, percent)
Logs Sawn Veneer Ply
Amount of change %
change Amount of change %
change Amount of change %
change Amount of change %
change


Production - - -563 -41.3 -124 -45.3 -2,170
-39.6

Imports -5,483 -41.7 -208 -16.7 -84 -43.8 +1,495 +51.9

Consumption -3,317 -30.2 -771 -29.5 -202 -44.5 -675 -
8.1

It is seen that whereas consumption of tropical logs has fallen by
only 30.2 percent, production of tropical plywood has fallen 39.6
percent, only marginally less than the 41.7 percent decline in log
imports. The fall in production of tropical sawnwood and veneer is
even greater. Such apparent anomalies in the figures do not auger well
for the prospects of detailed analysis, based on use of the ITTO
statistics alone, of patterns of Japanese consumption of tropical
timber. However, we might assume, contrary to what may be inferred from
the quote, that rather than that the figures for plywood production
including quantities made from stock-piled logs, the ITTO figures for
log consumption actually include additions to stock by, for example, the
plywood industry from stock held by, for example, trading companies. If
this assumption were correct, not the comparatively high, but the
comparatively low, sawnwood and plywood production levels would be
accounted for.

In spite of the fact that a fairly consistent picture in relation to the
above-discussed problems with the data can, with aid of the assumptions,
at least be constructed, the uncertainties must remain, and thus prevent
firm conclusions of a detailed nature. Conclusions of a more general
nature however, are unaffected. Of these, the most important at this
stage is that plywood manufacture is still by far the largest consumer
of tropical logs in Japan. The SCC for example report that in 1995,
87.6 percent of tropical logs imported into Japan were used for plywood
production . Also, without reference to the type of wood-product
involved, the following general breakdown of tropical timber use in
Japan can be given: building, construction and engineering works 55%,
furniture 31%, packing 7% and others 7%.

Japan's imported and domestically cut tropical sawnwood, is utilised
somewhat differently from the much larger amounts of coniferous sawnwood
described above. Relatively little, 48.3 percent, of tropical sawnwood
was used for construction. Nectoux 1990 attributes this to the fact
that most of it is hardwood ie. high-quality material best reserved for
specific hard-wearing products. The most important of these were:
furniture 21.3%, boxes/packaging 18.3% and transport/others 10%. The
last category includes heavy duty flooring for trucks and buses which
accounted for 7% of all shippings. Engineering uses accounted for a
further 2.2%.

As stated above, in terms of quantity, the most important use of
tropical timber is in the manufacture of plywood. Japanese tropical
plywood consumption for 1996 was 7,683,000m3. This represents a fall
from 8,358,000m3 in 1992. Bearing in mind the reservations already
made concerning these figures, this is a drop of 8.1 percent, which is
much smaller than the fall in consumption of the other product
categories. Moreover, as previously noted, Japanese plywood
manufacturers appear to be using increasing amounts of coniferous wood.
Given this, and adding the 4,458,000m3 of plywood produced to the
4,048,000m3 directly imported, total plywood consumption, that is total
consumption irrespective of the origin of the constituent material, for
1995, works out at 8,506,000m3, and appears therefore to have increased
since 1992.

Moreover, given the high level of plywood imports directly from tropical
countries, and the uncertain, but undoubtedly still very high, level of
tropical log use for the manufacture of plywood, it is clear that
patterns of Japanese production and consumption of plywood, have a major
impact upon the demand for tropical timber. Indeed, on the basis of
data already referred to, we can calculate that for 1995, the total
tropical RWE of plywood consumed in Japan was 15,035,000m3 or 82.8
percent of the total RWE of tropical timber used by Japan. This in turn
constituted 29.7 percent of the total RWE of tropical timber imported by
all ITTO consumer countries.

Before we go on to discuss the use of plywood in Japan, in addition to
the remarks just made regarding problems encountered when using ITTO and
FAO statistics and those reported by the SCC, there is a further
complication with regard to statistics coming directly from MAFF. This
is that plywood production figures from this source are given in square
metres, so that in order to be able to compare MAFF figures with those
of the other agencies, we would first need to know the average thickness
of Japanese plywood. The converse however is also true, that is, based
on the assumption that the MAFF figures in terms of area, and the FAO
figures in terms of volume, refer to all and only the same plywood, we
can, for a given year, as will be done later, make an estimate of the
average thickness of Japanese plywood.

Table 3.3 shows MAFF figures for Japanese plywood production for
selected years from the period 1975 to 1994. In spite of the said
complications we can still gain a strong impression of the decline of
the Japanese plywood industry, of which a short description of the
history, is given in the next paragraph.

The manufacture of plywood in Japan began in 1907 at which time wood
from domestic broadleaved (non-coniferous) trees was used to make tea
chests. Imports of tropical timber for plywood from the Philippines
began in 1921. As described in Chapter One, in the post-war period,
such imports increased massively. During this period since the Pacific
War however, the Japanese plywood industry has been through a process of
rise and fall. For some years Japan was a net exporter. From 1955 to
the late sixties exports to the US, which peaked in 1968 at 162 million
m2 or about 810 thousand m3, were about one-third of total output.
However, the improvement in the economic standing of Japan, in
particular the rise in the value of the yen, caused the comparative
advantage of Japan's plywood manufacturers to be severely eroded. At
first, this erosion arose as a result of the fact that Japanese
industrial consumers, in particular the construction industry, were
better able to afford plywood, thus increasing the price of exports.
Along with this, the increase in housing starts, particularly, as
described below, housing starts involving the construction of concrete
buildings, boosted demand for plywood. This latter change, though
beneficial to the plywood industry, has only softened the blow of the
roughly halving of production which has taken place since its peak of
around 1.5 billion square metres, or approximately 7.5million m3 in
1979. For, as mentioned, competition from Indonesia, Malaysia and
"third" countries such as South Korea and Taiwan which as Japan had done
in the past, import tropical logs in order to process them into plywood
for export, has not only ensured Japan's exclusion from any serious
participation in the export trade, but now looks as if it will continue
to expand the 50% share it has already gained of the Japanese domestic
market. Finally, as well as the decrease in production, there was,
already in 1986, a decrease in the number of plywood mills although it
is also true that there was a concomitant tendency for the average
capacity of the plywood mill in Japan to increase.

Information relating to the use of plywood in Japan is a central theme
of this dissertation. Such information is essential to any assessment
concerning the necessity or appropriateness of such use as well as to
any assessment of the possibilities of finding alternatives to the use
of tropical timber in the manufacture of plywood or indeed to finding
non-wood alternatives. Given the enormous part played by Japanese
demand, in the tropical timber market, this information appears to have
a vital bearing on the whole question of tropical deforestation insofar
as this is driven by export orientated logging. Unfortunately however,
up-to-date statistics concerning the use of plywood in Japan have not
been found during the course of research for this dissertation.
Moreover, with respect to the all-important data concerning the amount
of plywood used in the construction industry, the SCC report that
different agencies give widely varying statistics. The most recent data
found, which is for 1989, applies to the use of konpane alone and is
given below. The following breakdown by use is for plywood in general
but the last year covered by these figures is 1980, with 1968 and 1973
figures given for comparison. In 1980 then, the uses of plywood consumed
in Japan were approximately: construction (including joinery and
engineering) 55%, furniture 30%, fitting 5%, electrical appliance
cabinets 4%, display and decoration 2%, pallets and packing 2% and others 2%.
The same source shows that the percentage used in construction and engineering
was little changed since 1973. The 1973 figure however, represented a
roughly 25% increase from 1968. The percentage used for furniture
increased slightly from 1968 to 1980 showing a slight dip however, for
1973. From 1968 to 1980 the percentage share of all of the other
categories decreased. We conclude this chapter with some remarks
concerning the use of plywood concrete forms or konpane.

Although a Japanese term, "konpane" is of course, derived from the
English "concrete panel". Technically however, when the term is used to
refer to plywood in the Japanese context, it can be taken to refer to
any plywood which is over 12mm thick. In fact, just over half (51.5%),
of total konpane consumed in Japan in 1989 was used to mould concrete.
According to the SCC, the uses of the other 48.5% were:
"architecture (mainly used inside of the floor board, the wall board or
the ceiling board, etc.) 33.4%, civil works - 7.7%, furniture 7.7%,
exhibition 1.1%, packaging 0.6%, others 1.7%".

This further information however confirms that even though other uses of
konpane plywood were significant, non-construction-related uses formed a
fairly small proportion. Dauvergne 1997a quotes a study by Jaako Poyry
Consulting Oy, "Tropical Deforestation In Asia And Market For Wood.
AnnexV, pp.v/40-v/43." which states that:

"In terms of area, kon pane accounts for about 33 per cent of Japanese
plywood production; in terms of volume, it accounts for about two-thirds
of production"

This tells us that, as least as far as domestically produced konpane is
concerned, konpane plywood is by far the biggest consumer of tropical
timber. Unfortunately however, because no mention is made of the
increasingly significant quantities of imported plywood, we are not
able, from this information alone, to draw firm conclusions about the
percentage of konpane in total Japanese plywood consumption.

It is also possible, again taking only domestically produced plywood
into account, to construct a reasonable argument to the effect that
because of an increase in the average thickness, the proportion of konpane in
the total of plywood has increased since 1987.

This can be done in the following manner: By dividing the above-noted
UN figure of 4,865,000 m3 by the figure for the total area of plywood
produced in 1994 (719,629,000m2), we can arrive at a theoretical value
for the average thickness of plywood produced in Japan in 1994. This
works out at approximately 6.8mm. This would represent an increase on
the 6.3mm figure for 1987 given in Nectoux 1990 and therefore does
suggest an increase in the proportion of konpane plywood produced.

Even if then, none of the imported plywood was konpane, just based on
the remarks made above about the proportion of konpane in domestically
produced plywood, a very large percentage of plywood in Japan is in fact
konpane. Indeed we have no reason to suppose that the situation with
regard to imported plywood is any different from that with regard to
Japanese-made plywood. We could then surmise that approximately two
thirds of plywood consumed in Japan is konpane and that of this two
thirds, roughly half is actually used to make forms for concrete
structures. If this is the case, and if, as noted above with regard to
1995, about 83 percent of the total RWE of tropical timber used by Japan
is consumed as plywood, then about 28 percent of the total RWE of
tropical timber used in Japan is konpane in the sense suggested by the
term. Although this is certainly the largest single use, we should
however, given the huge quantities of her tropical timber imports and
the fact that these imports have been made possible by the exceptional
circumstances of the last three or four decades in which Japan has been
able to buy high-quality wood at an exceptionally low price, bear in
mind that, if Japan's tropical timber imports are to be brought down to
a level compatible with the preservation of even say, half of the
natural rainforest of SE Asia, then the finding of alternatives to all
the other uses, taken together, of tropical timber in Japan, is as
important as is the finding alternatives to the use of konpane.

The use of konpane concrete shuttering panels is nonetheless, not only
probably the largest use of tropical timber in Japan, it is also
regarded as the most wasteful and unnecessary use and as such, its
reduction appears to be the most likely to bring about a general fall in
the level of tropical timber imports. Dauvergne for example writes:

"Generally, after a few uses, kon pane is discarded. There is no
inherent need to use kon pane. If discarding tropical kon pane was no longer
the cheapest alternative, construction companies could respond in numerous
ways: they could make greater efforts to clean and reuse kon pane; use more
coated kon pane (which lasts longer); use more metal panels; or use more
softwood kon pane, from either domestic or overseas sources."

As we have already seen, of the alternatives mentioned by Dauvergne, the
last-mentioned has begun to be used and we therefore might expect some
decline in tropical timber consumption. As can be seen by Table 1b of
Chapter 1 however, the overall RWE level of Japan's imports of tropical
timber, after experiencing a surge during the period of the "bubble"
economy, fell again, but in 1996 was still above its 1988 level.
Notwithstanding any real decline in the quantities of tropical timber
used in Japanese plywood then, if we view Japanese imports of tropical
timber from the point of view of natural resource consumption, the
pattern that emerges is that the level of these imports is related
chiefly to the level of economic activity in Japan. Of this activity,
that of the construction sector is the most important and the level of
housing starts are in turn, a good indicator of the level of activity in
the construction sector. Figure 3 (next page) illustrates the similarity
between changes in the levels of, on the one hand, RWE tropical timber
imports and housing starts on the other.

To conclude this chapter then, we should make some further comments
regarding the extent to which the level of Japanese timber consumption
is unnecessarily high. In 1990, the wood of all types wasted from
construction raw materials was about 7.5 million MT. Much of this may
have been re-cycled. The ten million or so m3 wood wasted from
demolition sites however was far more likely, due to such methods as
minchi kaitai in which old buildings are reduced to "mincemeat" in a
matter of a few days, to be totally wasted. More importantly however,
as it is generally considered that the level of housing starts is a sign
of a healthy economy, we appear to be faced with the unpleasant
consequence that what is good for the Japanese economy and potential
home owners and occupiers, is bad for the tropical rain forests of
Southeast Asia but this need not be so. This is because the average
use-life of Japanese housing and other buildings could be greatly
extended. Average Japanese rebuilding cycles are perhaps as little as
20-30 years. On the other hand, there are architects who are designing
buildings with a use-life of more than 100 years. Even 100 years
however seems short by comparison with some of the more traditional
methods.

1.Sources: Housing starts: Nectoux 1990, OECD 1996 Timber imports:
Nectoux 1990, ITTO 1996a*, SCC 1996.

Chapter 4: Japanese log imports from Papua New Guinea

There are some similarities between Japan and Papua New Guinea.
Although Papua forms only half the island of New Guinea, both can be
loosely described as island states, the land area of Papua New Guinea,
451,710sq km, is not so much greater than that of Japan's 374,744sq km,
and while PNG undoubtedly has more lowland than Japan, the interior of
both countries is mountainous. Both suffer earthquakes and volcanoes.
It is even true that whereas PNG is most definitely a tropical country,
parts of Southern Japan can also be classed as tropical.

In many other respects however, it is difficult to imagine two countries
more unlike each other than Japan and Papua New Guinea. Apart from the
more general differences in climate, these dissimilarities have to do
with demography and human activity. Whereas Japan is a densely
populated modern economy, PNG is a sparsely populated island, the human
cultures of which have, not so very long ago, been compared with those
of the "stoneage". These differences however, as long as they continue
to exist, offer us an excellent opportunity to compare life at the two
extremes of the spectrum which exists between what one might call
"civilisation" and "the primitive state". Such a comparison may be
made in terms of some of the advantages and disadvantages of living in
one or the other country.

Of the advantages of living in Japan, those connected with the country's
prosperity, spring first to mind. Japan's GDP, in 1995, was estimated
at - $2.6792 trillion, or $21,300per capita. The equivalent figures for
PNG were just $10.2 billion or $2,400 per capita. Japan's trade balance
in 1995 was, of course positive, and about $107billion, or approximately
4% of GDP; the estimated figure for PNG, negative and about $1 billion
or just under 10% of GDP. Whereas Japan, unsurprisingly, has no external
debt and is in fact the World's largest creditor, PNG's external debt is
$3.2 billion, or almost one third of GDP. Japan has a total of 26,506km
of railways and 790,119km of paved roads, PNG has no railways and only
640km of paved roads. Of themselves, these statistics may not
necessarily be an advertisement for life in Japan. However, when we
consider for example, that life expectancy at birth in Japan, at
79.55years, is one of the highest in the World and that in PNG it is
57.25 years, and that in Japan, the percentage over the age of 15 who
can read and write, is 99%, whereas the equivalent figure for PNG is
72.2%, we perhaps see reflected, some of the more tangible benefits of a strong
economy. Also of course, although this is arguably a mixed blessing, the
Japanese are particularly rich in terms of the availability of consumer goods.

In spite of these advantages however, many drawbacks to the Japanese way
of life can be listed. Perhaps ultimately the most telling of these is
that concerning the amount of space available to each person. Each
member of Japan's 125,106,937population has a theoretical 0.003sq km, or
about 3,000 m2 of living space; each of PNG's 4,196,806population has
about 0.108sq km, or over 100,000 m2 of living space. We can add to
this the fact that much of Japan's population is crowded along the
mostly narrow coastal plains and the further fact that a large
percentage of these population centres is covered with concrete,
apartment blocks, factories and other buildings. The difference
therefore in the amount of space per person which has any kind of
vegetation whether natural or cultivated, is even greater. Partly as a
result of her larger population and partly as a result of the advanced
state of industrial development, the extent of pollution is, generally
speaking also far worse in Japan.

Also, but much more difficult to assess, there are those factors which
have to do with the nature of social being and power relationships.
Japan on the one hand, is a mass society with a long history of cultural
development on a national scale in which people are used to the
acceptance of enormously powerful social, economic and political forces
acting upon them from afar. The tribal arrangements in PNG, in which
the traditional economy supports 72% of the population, on the other
hand, could not be more different. Here, the corresponding influences
have, for those still free from the encroachment of external powers,
been of a much more tangible and visible nature. It is at least
arguable that this, along with the physical demands of such a life, has
beneficial effects for the human psyche and for the way in which social
and psychological problems are dealt with. PNG also excels in terms of
cultural diversity. The country boasts for example, well over 700
distinct languages, more than 10% of the World total. This compares
with the near ubiquity of Japanese in Japan. Perhaps most fundamentally
however, we can refer back to a point made in the first chapter.
Despite the "underdevelopment" of PNG's economy, it does have "a proven
track-record", of many millennia, of sustainability. Japan's modern
economy has yet to prove it can equal this, and in one respect at least,
we know already that it cannot do so. That is, with
regard to its consumption of tropical timber.

One crucial advantage Japan does have over PNG, is that of the power
which arises from the combined effect of having a large population and
economy and a powerful currency. Whatever ones views as to the
desirability of "development" and the extent to which those living in
PNG and other "underdeveloped" countries, truly desire or need it, there
can be no denying the existence of external pressures for such
development to take place. With regard to the relationship between PNG
and Japan, these pressures take the form of the demand for raw
materials. Although PNG's chief exports are crude oil, gold and copper
ore, in 1994, the value of timber exports nonetheless comprised around
one sixth of the countrys' total exports.

Export-oriented industrial logging and deforestation in PNG are very
much more closely linked than they are in most other parts of the
tropics. For both the tropics in general and for PNG in particular FAO
statistics show production of fuelwood to be far greater than industrial
roundwood production. In PNG however, because of the small population,
and because of the high regional demand for timber, the ratio of
industrial roundwood production for export to total wood production, is
very much higher. This is illustrated by Table 4. In addition, one can
argue that, again with regard to both the tropics in general and to PNG
in particular, the relative impact of logging on natural forests, as
opposed to the impact of fuelwood gathering, is more severe than the
statistics suggest. This is because the more traditional utilisation of
timber resources is not as concentrated in a particular location and,
using at most, only light machinery, is much more likely to leave open
the possibility of natural regeneration.

Table 4: The percentages of World and PNG production of non-coniferous
roundwood consumed as fuelwood and traded 1993 (1000m3, %)

A B B/A (%) C C/A (%)
Production Estimated production of
fuelwood Quantity traded

World 2,059,130 1,530,215 74.3 111,416 5.4
PNG 8,124 5,533 68.1 1,928 23.7

Figure 4.1 PNG's industrial roundwood production and exports (1982-1996)
and Japan's imports from PNG (1990-1996)(1000m3)

Figure 4.1 shows that during the 1980's PNG's raw log production and
exports climbed. The early 1990's however saw a sharper increase in
both production and exports. This increase is clearly mirrored by, and
the chart strongly suggests that it is largely due to, increased
Japanese imports, of which, more than half of PNG's annual log exports
throughout most of the 1990's have been comprised. Figure 4.2
(following page) on the other hand compares this increase in Japan's
imports of logs from PNG, with its corresponding levels of imports from
Malaysia. Here we see that, though to some extent, log imports from PNG
have compensated for the large decline in those from Malaysia, there
might be some indication from these figures, that for the time being at
least, the annual rate of exports from PNG to Japan is not accelerating
to the extent that PNG is becoming "the next Sarawak". This
levelling-off of log exports no doubt reflects the government's policy
of reducing them:

Figure 4.2: Japanese imports of logs from PNG and Malaysia (1990-1996)
(1000m3)

"by 10% each year from 1995-2000, following which a log export ban is
to be imposed" .

This suggests that perhaps PNG has learnt from its neighbours' mistakes
and that more is to be gained by developing its own wood-processing
industries relatively early on rather than by allowing the rapid
selling-off its forests cheaply. However, such wood-processing
industries are still virtually non-existent and PNG is already the
second largest exporter of tropical logs. Moreover:

"An Australian government assessment in 1995 found that PNG's logging
allocations were three times above economically sustainable levels."

Even more ominous, the new PNG National Forest Plan identifies 20
million ha of the country's 39 million ha forest estate for logging, and
of this, 12 million are to be allocated by the year 2000. When these
concessions are handed out, there at present seems little reason to
suppose that the Japanese market will not be participating in the
bidding for the timber and timber-products thus forthcoming.

Chapter 5: Japanese government and industry monitoring procedures,
policies and policy initiatives connected with or aimed at reducing
tropical deforestation.

Of the internationally adopted initiatives which deal explicitly with
the problem of deforestation, Agenda 21, Chapter 11, arising from the
1992 Earth Summit (UNCED) at Rio is that with the highest profile and
also that which has the highest level of political backing. The Rio
Summit also brought forth the "Forest Principles", a

"non-legally binding authoritative statement of principles for a global
consensus on the management, conservation and sustainable development of
all types of forests" .

At the time of the Rio conference there was much criticism by
environmental lobbyists and experts alike. With regard to environmental
issues in general and forest conservation in particular, these
criticisms stemmed from the perceived lack of commitment, on the part of
the signatories. Agenda 21 Chapter 11 contains much in the way of
reference to the importance and value, over and above their value as a
source of timber, of forests, to the seriousness of the problem of
deforestation and to the need for "sustainable" use of forest resources.
In effect however, little appeared to be proposed in the way of
measures which would guarantee the future of these precious resources.
That, at least as far as the issue of tropical deforestation is
concerned, the criticisms were largely justified seems borne out by
subsequent events, most tellingly, by the fact that the rate of
deforestation appears, as was mentioned in Chapter 1, not to have
slowed but has perhaps increased. It is difficult to avoid the
conclusion that though there were no doubt many sincerely-felt
statements of concern, these concerns were always likely to take second
place to the more immediate demands of political and economic life and
that these demands would, in most cases, run directly counter to the
goal of forest conservation.

Agenda 21, Chapter 11 however, explicitly supports, and should not be
seen in isolation from the International Tropical Timber Agreements
(ITTA's) of 1983 and 1994, the first of which established the ITTO. The
International Tropical Timber Organisation is the intergovernmental
organisation closest to the industry and is therefore best placed to
influence policies. These are decided by its members which consist of
representatives from countries which are grouped according to whether
they are chiefly producers or consumers. Voting rights are
substantially weighted according to the quantities exported, in the case
of producers, and imported, in the case of consumers and so the concern
has been expressed that decisions are likely to be strongly influenced
by the commercial concerns of the member countries with the most
powerful timber-trade lobbies. Such influences might not be thought of
as wholly negative in terms of their impact on forests if it were the
case that very long-term commercial prospects were the main
consideration. Concessions held by logging companies operating in
Southeast Asia have however, tended to be very short-term and, in
practice, with regard to the commercial exploitation of natural forests,
there is in fact very little need, unless obliged to by contract, for a
company to concern itself with the future of a resource.

Among the aims of the ITTA's however, is the curtailment of purely
exploitative types of "management". In stating these aims, frequent
mention is made of the central concept of "sustainability". Different
interpretations of the term "sustainable", however, give rise to very
different kinds of policies. Of these interpretations, two are
particularly important. On the one hand there is the notion of
sustainability of timber supplies. Under this interpretation no
reference need necessarily be made to biodiversity, ecology, indigenous
people or even to the economic service functions of forests. On the
other hand, there is the view that natural forests and natural forest
ecosystems, because of the reasons outlined in Chapter One, are
valuable in themselves and therefore ought to be sustained. Such
ambiguity naturally leads to confusion. In particular, policies aimed
chiefly at sustainability of timber supplies can be described, by the
insertion of phrases such as "environmentally sound", in such a way as
to appear to be complete in harmony with the goal of natural forest
conservation, to which they may merely be paying lip service.

The ITTA's of 1983 and 1994, as does Chapter 11 of Agenda 21, make
frequent reference to the desirability of sustainable management. The
ITTO agreed in May 1990:

"to achieve exports of tropical timber products from sustainably managed
sources by the year 2000".

It seems natural to suppose that the concept of sustainability likely to
be uppermost in the minds of the parties to the ITTA's would be that of
the concept of secure supplies of timber; this may
indeed be appropriate given the constitution of the ITTO. However, if
we accept that forests are of importance to all on the planet, and, more
particularly, are important to the whole global economy, it does not
seem wise to leave their stewardship chiefly in the hands of interest
groups for whom the forests are seen overwhelmingly from one
perspective. If they really are so important, it is vital that policy
is much more strongly influenced in the light of awareness of this fact.
If such an input must profoundly effect the forest industry, it is not
done out of malice or out of a sense that the industry is "to blame" for
the crisis, but out of necessity. Indeed depending on how the changes
are implemented, there may even be benefits for those parts of the
forestry industry which are most willing to accept their multiple
responsibilities.

The ITTA's then, should not be seen as agendas for the effective
preservation of tropical forest ecosystems. The same is true, insofar
as it supports the ITTA's, of Agenda 21, Chapter 11. It is true
however, as mentioned above, that passages from both documents certainly
give the impression that the environmental and non-timber values of
forests are fully recognised and there are many suggestions as to how
the process of tropical deforestation is to be halted. Possibly
correctly, most of the proposals concern policies to be implemented
directly in countries with tropical forest resources. There is very
little though, which can be clearly interpreted as suggesting that waste
or over-consumption of tropical timber is a major problem. Exceptions
to this however, are to be found in the non-legally binding Forest
Principles. These are item 6(b) which states:

"National policies and programmes should take into account the
relationship, where it exists, between the conservation, management and
sustainable development of forests and all aspects related to the
production, consumption, recycling and/or final disposal of forest
products."

and item 7(a) which states that

"Efforts should be made to promote a supportive international economic
climate conducive to sustained and environmentally sound development of
forests in all countries, which include, inter alia, the promotion of
sustainable patterns of production and consumption,................."

Agenda 21 Chapter 11 itself makes no unambiguous reference to the
connection between deforestation and timber exports, while the ITTA's
avoid any suggestion that reduction in trade

would be desirable and makes quite explicit its opposition to:

"measures to restrict or ban international trade in, and in particular
as they concern imports of and utilization of, timber and timber
products",

Elsewhere however, the ITTA of 1994, by implication, does recognise the
importance of improving the "efficiency of wood utilization" and of
encouraging "members to develop national policies aimed at sustainable
utilization and conservation of timber producing forests". Indeed,
these aims are specifically tied to the conservation of:

"other forest values in timber producing tropical forests" and to the
"conservation of timber producing forests and their genetic resources
and at maintaining the ecological balance in the regions concerned".

No specific mention is made of the role of consumer countries however,
and the relevant institutions of these countries are left with the
option of interpreting the passages as implying that the problems are to
be dealt with exclusively by means of policy changes on the part of
producers, albeit assisted by the benevolence of the more wealthy
consumers. The obvious questions for us at this point concern the
extent to which Japan recognises that its own past and present massive
consumption, in terms of RWE's is or has been a major reason behind
tropical deforestation in Southeast Asia and whether it deems it
important to take steps to reduce its consumption and, beyond this,
whether it is willing to use its own experience as well as its economic
influence in the region, to help other countries, particularly China,
who's imports of tropical timber are becoming increasingly substantial,
to develope alternative policies with regard to their wood-economies.

Japan was the eighteenth signatory to Agenda 21 and therefore to its
Chapter 11, and is thus committed, notwithstanding the above-mentioned
drawbacks, to its text and to its aims. Japanese agencies, like for
example, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as quoted in the first chapter
frequently echo the expressions of concern. More recently, the Japanese
Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto, at the Rio+5 conference in New York,
re-iterated in general terms, his country's commitment to the
environment by launching a "green initiative". Japan also, in
particular, by virtue of the fact that it is the largest consumer of
tropical timber and so has a large number of votes allocated to it, but
also by virtue of its financial contributions, plays a major role at the
ITTO,. For example, Japan contributes two thirds of the funds for the
ITTO's account for voluntary projects connected with the above-mentioned
target of sustainable management achievement.

Notwithstanding the comparatively little emphasis placed in the ITTA's
and in the UN documents, upon the role of consumers of tropical timber,
various relevant institutions in Japan have, from time to time expressed
quite clearly, the view that a reduction in the use of tropical timber
would be very wise and that it is an important part of securing the
future of the environment for future generations. On 24 December, 1993
the Japanese Council of Ministers for Global Environmental Conservation
decided the "National Action Plan for Agenda 21". In this it is stated
that:

"Japan attaches importance to the implementation of the below-mentioned
items:".

These included "Stabilizing supply and demand of timber, and the
efficient use of tropical timber"

"(ii) Giving due consideration to the strategic objective of "trade in
tropical timber from sustainably managed forest resources by the Year
2000," which was adopted by the ITTO, Japan will make efforts to
properly use tropical timber in accordance with the "Three Principles on
Tropical Timber Trade," which are: (i) monitoring of trade in tropical
timber; (ii) increasing value added (sic) of tropical forest products;
(iii) rationalizing consumption of tropical timber."

It is also true that there have been some moves to adopt policies in
accordance with these words. Japan's provision of statistics for the
ITTO constitutes a certain level of monitoring of trade in tropical
timber. In Chapter 1 however, the case was made that at the root of the
problem of tropical deforestation lies the propensity of man's economic
systems to disregard the natural environment. If this is true, we need
to know how it is we could alter the basis of our economies in order
that they are no longer a drain on the life-support systems upon which
they depend. This is not a problem which can be solved here. It is
nonetheless reasonable to suppose that a key part of any solution must
include some kind of integrated environmental and economic accounting
procedure. It is also clear that in order to be effective, such a
procedure must include recognition of the effects of a particular
country's economic activities upon the environment and economies of
other countries and upon the environment of internationally exploited
areas. As with conventional accountancy, a vital part of any integrated
environmental and economic accounting procedure would consist of the
systematic collection of basic information. In the context of the
present discussion, the most important elements of this basic
information are the data concerning the nature and degree of
logging-related forest loss and the data concerning the end-uses of the
timber-products thus gained. It would therefore be the government of
Japan's responsibility, in much the same way as the National Accounts
are presently, to publish all the relevant data concerning its use of
tropical timber. As we shall see in a moment however, if detailed and
up-to-date information concerning the use of tropical timber in Japan is
in fact being collected by the responsible agencies, some of those who
are taking most interest in the matter would appear to have yet to gain
access to it. In addition, although Japan's Economic Planning Agency
(EPA) has begun making trial estimates of GDP using a system of
integrated environmental and economic accounting, "the imputed
environmental cost of deforestation and others (sic) in foreign
countries associated with Japan's imports" remained, in 1995 at least,
under the heading and sub-headings: "Remaining Issues, Future Tasks, and
Time Table: Issues and tasks: Expanding the scope of estimation"

Nevertheless, in addition to the above-mentioned timber trade monitoring
which she carries out, Japan has complied with its own National Action
Plan for Agenda 21 in that, albeit heavily influenced by log-export
bans, the country has greatly increased the percentage of her plywood
imports, which has increased the percentage of value-added products in
her imports. There has also been some attempt to reduce the excessive
use of tropical plywood in the construction industry. The Japan
Building Contractors Society(BCS), representing 81 key companies, in
February 1992 , announced the intention to reduce, within five years,
the quantities of tropical timber used by 35%. Five years has of course
passed since this announcement. However, the SCC, who have a taken keen
interest in the matter, report that to date they have received no news
concerning the progress of this policy. Information coming directly
from the BCS would suggest that no monitoring is taking place. From the
analysis in Chapters 2 and 3 however, it would appear that, if the
Japanese construction industry has indeed reduced its dependence on
tropical timber, this has largely been due to increases in the
quantities of coniferous wood in the manufacture of plywood. It would
also seem, as has been stated before, that in terms of the RWE of
tropical timber consumed, any reduction may very well be illusory.
Just as NGO's internationally have criticised the insufficiency of the
above-described intergovernmental initiatives, so Japanese NGO's have
criticised the Japanese Government Ministries and Industry bodies for
their fine words but little action. The Ministry of Forestry and the
Ministry of Environment for example have been criticised for being
"always very vague", and "only insisting on their continuous 'effort' ".
Further, the SCC reports that the Forestry Ministry are now insisting
that to ban or limit imports of tropical timber is a violation of WTO
rules and are therefore "going to bother" the SCC's Local Government
Campaign under which many local governments in Japan have policies to
reduce the use of tropical timber. The SCC add that the Ministry of
Construction, in spite of their adopted policy objective of reduction in
the use of tropical timber, "have the same idea as the Forestry Agency
regarding tropical timber imports and WTO rules".

In addition to the need for Japan to solve its own problem of its
apparent need to consume unsustainable amounts of tropical timber, there
is the question of the need for her to use her economic might to assist
other countries, who may be severely limited in the options open to them
with regard to their ability to stop damage to the environment. There
are some reasons to suppose that Japan is in fact doing this. In
particular, Japanese Overseas Development Assistance, as well as the
nation's aforementioned contribution to the ITTO sponsored programmes to
achieve sustainability, is high by comparison with that of other large
economies. However, the organisation as well as the philosophy behind
Japanese ODA has been criticised as not, on the whole, being conducive
to forest conservation. Recent aid policies in line with PM Hashimoto's
above-mentioned "green initiative" appear to show that to some extent,
this criticism has been accepted by Japanese government agencies.
Japan's emphasis until now has been upon providing development
assistance for building roads and other infrastructure in developing
nations. By contrast, the new measures emphasise "technical assistance"
and "training". However, these new policies, at least as far as
tropical deforestation is concerned, appear to invite renewed
accusations from environmentalists and environmental economists, that
Japan is not ready to accept that economic and technological "advance",
in its present form, is as much, if not more, a cause of the
difficulties as it is able to offer solutions. Moreover, the
environmentally damaging effects of Japanese-style development have been
amplified by the fact that the Japanese economy has been regarded as a
model, by many observers the World over, by many Japanese economists who
regard their own country as setting an example to be followed, and, most
importantly, by policy makers in neighbouring Asian countries. It will
be argued in the conclusion that a vastly different approach to the use,
both in terms of the nature, and in terms of the amount, of the
financial resources of developed economies is unavoidable.

Chapter 6: Conclusions

Using the information regarding Japanese consumption of tropical and
other timber presented in Chapters 1 and 2 and the observations
concerning the words and actions of the responsible bodies in Japan, we
shall now try to give a prognosis of the extent to which Japanese
consumption of tropical timber is likely to continue to contribute to
deforestation in PNG and in Southeast Asia in general. Some attempt
will also be made to make suggestions as to the best way forward, if
significant amounts of natural forest are to remain in the region.
Finally, further recommendations and remarks will be made regarding the
need for further study and in particular, concerning the philosophical
underpinning of such study.

From the information presented in Chapters 2 and 3 we can conclude that
to some extent Japanese industry and the government and industry
organisations involved with the regulation and guidance of industry,
appear to have had some success in reducing the amount of tropical
timber which ends up, in one form or another, on Japanese construction
sites, in Japanese factories and so on. Nevertheless, no evidence has
been found that consumption-oriented policies of Japanese government and
industry have brought about any reduction in the total volume of raw
wood, destined for the Japanese market, which is being removed from
tropical forests. Also, in view of the fact that what progress has been
made in the reduction of the tropical content of Japanese-produced
plywood appears to have been made possible principally by increased
imports of coniferous logs, some of which originated from other virgin
forests such as those of Siberia, this progress is of dubious
environmental value. Also, the reduction has almost certainly arisen as
much from the need to diversify supplies as from environmental concerns.
In this connection, the existence on the one hand, of the various log
export bans and restrictions imposed by tropical producers, while on the
other, the knowledge that resources of tropical timber are declining at
such a rate that sooner or later alternatives will have to found, have
clearly played a major role. We cannot therefore with confidence assert
that changed conditions will not result in levels of tropical imports
rising yet further.

Indeed, if we accept the following argument that its root causes are to
be found in the way developed and less developed economies interact, we
have every reason to suppose that, without giving the matter far greater
priority, rapid logging-related deforestation in Southeast Asia and
throughout other parts of the World, will continue. For, because of the
higher monetary value attached to technologically advanced products,
developed economies are able to purchase natural resources for a price
which allows far too much of them to be consumed in a short space of
time. Of course, it has been argued that the market "will take care of
everything" and that eventually, as resources dwindle, their scarcity
makes them valuable again. However, although the very existence of most
commodities may depend upon the economic service functions of
ecosystems, it is difficult to see how the systems themselves could be
treated as commodities in order that their value could increase. It
could be argued that the values of commodities, agricultural produce for
example, which depend upon ecosystems would rise, but we would still be
left with the difficulty of how to ensure that the cause of such price
rises, that is environmental degradation, is to be dealt with. More
fundamentally, price fluctuations and environmental changes operate
according to entirely different time-scales. In particular, although
prices may "go through the roof" overnight, severe damage to the
environment may take years to take full effect, may take many years or
centuries to heal, or may be irreparable.

We have then, no indication that patterns of logging-related
deforestation, to the extent that this is induced by demand from the
Japanese market, is likely, in the near future, to decline.
Nevertheless, Japanese industry, well-known for its remarkable capacity
for developing and optimising the use of new technology, may be able, by
for example greatly extending the life of konpane, to reduce the need
for much of the tropical timber presently used in Japan. Such a
development would have the added advantage that the manufacturers of
such panels would be keen that the Japanese Government support policies
which would increase demand from other countries for such products, in
place of their demand for tropical timber.

Although we should not totally discount the possibility of such
developments, we should however, for the following reasons, be wary of
attaching too much importance to this. First, whatever the
possibilities, they are still merely possibilities; the actuality is
that tropical timber consumption in Japan remains at a very high level.
Second, the development of technologies which avoid the need to import
tropical timber do not in themselves help those countries which at the
moment supply Japan. As Barbier et al.1994 point out, a reduction in
demand for tropical timber would result in a fall in price and may
therefore encourage compensatory increased production. Third, the
solution which seems to offer the most in the way of both conserving
forests as well as helping countries with forest resources, would be for
the price of timber somehow to reflect the true costs incurred by forest
loss. At this stage, if we do this, we are not comparing like with
like. Timber values are measured in monetary terms, environmental
values, insofar as these can be measured at all, are measured according
to the concepts of the Life Sciences. As it is the former which are the
principal determinants of human activity, great riches in terms of the
latter, can be discarded without effective objection from human agency.
But value expressed in monetary terms, however central to human life as
it is lived today, can never be more fundamental than value expressed in
biological terms. In short: human societies have existed without the
one, they could never exist without the other.

In order to conserve the ecosystems upon which we depend we need to
avoid the continuation and repetition of historical sequences such as
has occurred in relation to Japan's consumption of Southeast Asia's
tropical forest resources. In order to do this it will be necessary to
bring to an end the conflict between financial and ecological value.
How this is done is likely to be seen as an enormous challenge but if
this challenge cannot be met, claims on behalf of industrial
democracies that they are superior in terms of their economic
organisation must be seen to be severely tested. Although this
dissertation is not designed to answer the challenge posed, we ought
nonetheless, to give at least some brief indication of a possible way
forward.

This approach begins with the concept of regarding natural ecosystems as
being natural infrastructure. Like man-made infrastructure they provide
essential services upon which the rest of the economy depends. Unlike
man-made infrastructure however, natural infrastructure requires no
funds for its creation. Perhaps this is one reason why its value has
passed relatively unnoticed, in other words, why it has been taken for
granted. Although then, no funds are required to create natural
infrastructure, we should not imagine, that in order to prevent damage
to this infrastructure, funds possibly as great, perhaps even greater,
than those allocated to man-made infrastructure, may be required. With
respect to the export-driven logging of tropical forests, as hinted
already, the most promising solution would seem to involve increasing
the immediate financial costs of cutting forests, making tropical timber
more expensive and thus reducing demand. Some form of market
intervention seems therefore to be required. Remembering that not just
the producer countries, but that all others depend on the service
functions of the tropical forests, governments collectively could buy-up
logging concessions of producers.

We should very briefly note two sets of objections and counter
objections. The main theoretical objection to such a policy would no
doubt come from those who obj