Asia

Underlying Factors of Japan’s Dependency of Overseas Forest
Resources After the Modernization Period

1. Outlook of Japan’s Forest

Japan is a country of mountainous long archipelago, with more than 10,000 islands, located in the eastern edge of the Asian region. Its humid and warm climate provide ideal condition for forest growth. The annual average rainfall is about 1,800 mm. Famous heavy rain area are Yakushima island (southern part, close to sub-tropical aone) and Owase area, Mie prefecture located in the Kii peninsular of the main island, where more than 4,000 mm annual rainfall can be observed. Eastern part of Hokkaido, the northern island, has 900 mm, and lower plain of Nagano prefecture has about 1,000 mm. Even those lower rainfall can support forest formation easily.

Japan has diverse type of forests, which are influenced by different temperature in this south-north long archipelago. Average temperature gap between Kushiro (Hokkaido) and Naha (Okinawa, the southern island) reaches 10? in the warmest month, 23? in the coldest month. Diverse topographical, geological as well as geographical condition influence the variety of vegetation formation.

Yet chronological details of human arrival and their evolution have not been clearly determined at this stage, recent active archeological studies began to reveal more and more details of human activities during the earthen ware age at least as early as around 13,000 years ago. Since human population and their intervention to the natural process had increased for the last 10,000 years, the original forest vegetation became to be substantially altered.

In the original stage in this period, evergreen coniferous forest with "Todomatsu" =Saghalien fir ( Abies sachalienensis) and "Ezomatsu" = Yezo spruce(Picea jezoensis) were dominated in the eastern and central mountain part of Hokkaido(Northern island) and mixed coniferous and deciduous hardwood forests in the western Hokkaido.

In northeast mainisland, Tohoku region, "Buna"=Siebold’ Beech(Fagus crenata) and "Mizunara"= Japanese Oak (Quercus crispula) were dominated in the mountainous area , "Ooshirabiso" and others in the higher mountain area and "Sugi" = Japanese cedar( Cryptomeria japonica) in the lower area.

Deciduous hardwood forests were dominated in the most of the mainisland up to the "Kinki"( western part, including Kyoto, Osaka) area, and " Shirabiso", " Ooshirabiso"," Touhi", "Kometsuga"= evergreen coniferous specfies= could be found in the higher backbone mountain area, with special short pine vegetation on the mountain top.

In the Pacific coastal line below the "Kanto" (including Tokyo) area, as well as Japan Sea side below "Hokuriku "(including Niigata) area, evergreen hardwood forest,called "Shoyojurin" were widely spread including "Shii"(Red oak= Castanopsis Cuspidatavar),"Kashi", "Tabu" and "Kusu"(Camphor tree=Cinnamomun camphora) species. In Yakushima island, further south from Kyushu island, thousands of years old cedar forest could be observed and in Okinawa islands had more diverse evergreen hardwood forests could be found than those in Kyushu. Mangrove forest could be identified in these most southern archipelago area below the southern part of Kyushu.

2. Present situation

Japanese forests now occupy around 25 million ha, 67 % of our total land area which is one of the most forested country in the world. Government figure said it has nearly 3,5 billion cubic meter stocks in volume, and whose growth rate is about 7o million cubic meter a year (Our total annual wood demands are around 110 million) . In quality, there are very few original vegetation left in our islands. Around 40% of our forest is planted forest. 31%=7,9 million ha is national forest and majority are located in the central and Northeast (Tohoku) mountainous regions. More than half areas are belong to private forest owners, most of them are quite small owners with average less than 1 ha (0,5 ha???), and their major parts used be coppice forests but has been rapidly disappearing due to the energy revolution(fossil fuel use) , pulp wood demands as well as housing and other kinds of development. Although many of the wood use areas have been replaced by steel, aluminum, plastics, glass, concrete as well as fossil fuels, Japan still have more than 110 million cubic meter annual wood demands, 4 times more than those of 50 years ago. In addition, more than 80 % of those woods are from overseas ( North America, Southeast Asia and South pacific, Oceanea, Far east Siberia, Chile, Africa Scandinavia and others) in recent years, majority of the large and young planted forests after clearcut during the post-war period , cannot produce timber very much , due to the higher costs under the high Yen condition.

3. The purpose of this report : Identification of Problems, Underlying Factors of the Present Situation and Possible Solution

Because of Japan’s special roles in the development of native forests as well as land use decisions in the world today, it is important to look at historical and social, economic and political background of forest use in this country. I hope it could contribute to clarify some of the key underlying causes of deforestation and forest degradation as well as associate issues to the whole IFF exercises.

• Summary of the Key problems:

1. As the author referred earlier, Japan is now the wood import giant from wide range of world forest areas. The scale of wood and wood products trade , large demands of high quality old growth wood for softwood sawn wood ( what they call "J grade", "J sort" and others ), as well as huge hardwood demands for plywood ( mainly some 15-20 million cubic meter of tropical timber with some 1-2 million cubic meter of softwood) and pulp and paper production ( mainly from native or secondary hardwood forest with increasingly from plantation) provide special characteristics to these activities.
2. Impact of these activities can be observed in variety of forest areas with the variety of forms, including Tropical Southeast Asia, South Pacific region, Western part of North America , US Southeast region, Australia and New Zealand, Far Eastern Siberia, East Asia, Chile and Brazil, West Africa, South Africa and so on.
   Numerous number of concerns have been being raised by local communities and environmentalists, and number of serious disputes could be identified during the last few decades. Methodology of those resistances were valid , from the legal action to desperate violent action against direct actors in the local level as well as national political levels, in accordance with the particular local and national conditions.. The lists of those complains and disputes and selected brief case descriptions are attached as appendix.
3. The origin of those problems started during the modernization period under the chronic wood shortage, especially after the introduction of modern wood based pulp and paper production technology from North America. Logging frontier had already reached from the Southern island( Yakushima island) to southern part of Hokkaido( Northern island) by the end of pre-modern period( as early as 17th century). Under the western colonization forces during the modernization era, more and more wood and other resources were required since Japanese government took the direction of economic and military expansion as a mean to combat western colonization forces.
4. After Japan lost forest resources in their colonial territory, remaining domestic forest resources had been quickly finished during the high economic growth era. Government and industry closely worked together to develop overseas resources through trade and investment (what they call "Development and Import" Policy) supported by the growing development politics both in the North and the South.
5. When Japan reached the limits of growth, during the end of the high economic growth era in the early 70s, government started to introduce large scale nation wide development schemes in order to stimulate domestic demands and material consumption to sustain whole post-war industrial development system as well as for the income redistribution to the depressed rural communities.

This policy was also prompted by the US government demand for Japan to increase domestic demands as a part of the solution to reduce US trade deficit against Japan. It was further extended under the prime minister Nakasone government through their deregulation and urban redevelopment policies. As a result, government spending for the construction and public engineering works has become skyrocketed and annual construction investment reached some 600 billion dollars when public and private investment combined which exceeded more than that of United States. This extraordinary ways to maintain industrial system resulted bubble economy, huge government debts, some billions of tons of industrial wastes and has increased ecological shadows in many remaining forest lands throughout the Asia-Pacific region.

This report will provide more detail discussion on what has been the underlying factors on these developments and how we should address to redirect those unsustainable cycles.

4. A brief overview of the pre-modern Japanese society and forests

1. Pre-civilization period
   The beginning of the early human intervention to forest ecosystem probably started as early as more than 5,000 years ago- early Jomon( earthen ware) era, when warmer climate increased hardwood forest which contain variety of edible nuts and chestnuts. People stared to change original forests into "Satoyama" – Japanese gardening / village forests in relatively larger scale. One of the most well known archeological site is " Sannnai-Maruyama" area, where archeologists found out many evidences of the tree cultivation and large scale construction and engineering activities. Some huge chestnuts were used for the tower construction, and scientists could only find such huge chestnuts in Siberia for their resoration of that monument.
2. First and Second Forest Crisis
   According to Prof. Tadman , there were 2 serious forest crisis in pre-modern Japan. More rapid forest destruction activities appeared in the early urban civilization period, during 6-9^th Century A.D. This new powereful people started to construct large capital cities and introduced sophisticated construction as well as Steel and copper processing technology. As their power expanded, forests were opened up for their huge temple construction as well as for energy needs. Political capital had been moved many times, as wood resources became to be scarce and natural diastar occurred after the forest destruction, together with some internal political battles.

The second forest crisis emerged during 16-17^th century when long warfare era was ended and new Shogunate governor, Hideyoshi ordered to cut highest quality large old growth trees for his ambitious monumental temples and buddha image construction. Historical documents showed his order to cut largest old growth cedar forest in Yakushima island and other places. After Hideyoshi was replaced by Ieyasu, he also started to construct numerous monumental temples and shrines as well as new city buildings and castles in new Edo city. Logging frontier was reached from southern island to southern Hokkaido by the late 17^th century. As Edo.( Tadman,1986) As Edo and other cities grew, material consumption grew rapidly, there were substantial impact on forest and land use patterns. During the peaceful 300 years, as population had been increased rapidly, and consumer demands for steel and other metals, ceramics, salt and luxurious agricultural commodities grew,

Shogunate government as well as local powerful governors regulate tree harvests and introduced tree planting activites. According to Prof. Tadman and other Japanese scholars, tree plantation period were started around 300 hundred years ago.

5. Modernization Era

At the time of the peaceful Meiji restoration period, new government and other powerful leaders rapidly introduced western technology in order to combat western colonization powers. As majority of Japan’s forests were fully utilized, there were little room left for new wood based industry such as wood based pulp and paper Since it was based on softwood resources at that time, pulp industry only found very limited unused forest area, such as the upper Tenryu river ( Momi fir species), then then moved to Hokkaido where there were some accessible softwood forests remained. Indigenous Ainu people suffered from this forest development schemes and the sacred Ishikari river became industrial swage before the second world war. After the pulp mills activities grew, in accordance with the paper demands grew during the modernization stage, soon, the accessible softwood forests near the railways depleted, this industry began to look at overseas resources. This was materialized after the victory of Japan- Cino War( 1894-95) and Japan- Russo war(1904-5). These war also stimulated modern paper consumption for the military purposes. They started to investigate those countries forest resources, and began to start logging in Sakhalin( since 1910s), Taiwan ( since 1911, at first bamboo) and started to construct pulp mills in Sakhalin, Korean peninsular, Northeast China,( Manchuria), and Taiwan during the 1910s and 20s. Sahkalin became the largest pulpwood producer and then later, largest pulp production area for pre-war Japan. Oji Paper, the leading paper pulp and producer was very active to study other overseas resources and was asked by military to construct pulp and paper mills in Indonesia( Sumatra/ Merkusi pine) , PNG( Manokuwari), and Northern Borneo, just before the end of the war, although they were not materialized, ( Oji Paper,"Forest management History of Oji Paper",1976)

6. Post-War Period

• General Overview

The Post-War period could be understand with 5 segments.
The first segment : Restoration Period( 1945-1960)
The Second Segment: High Economic Growth Period(1960-1973)
The Forth Segment: Low Growth Period(1974-1985)
The Fifth Segment: Bubble Economy Period( 1986-1991) followed by the depression up to now.

The First period determined the basic direction of the post-war Japan's national priorities which emphasize that Japan should re-develop heavy and chemical industry in rather larger scale. That policy partially originated from its experimental state of Manchuria during the war era. What we call the origin of Japan INC, which is State and bureaucrats led capitalistic development.

During this period, after it lost colonial forest resources, it used up its domestic resources as quick as possible for their restoration and the recovery of post war economic development.

The Second Period:
Sudden wood shortage prompted government to introduce new policy to stimulate timber imports. Ever larger scale wood imports had started at the entrance of the high economic growth era. Forest resources both from remaining domestic and overseas forest resources had been mobilized to support economic expansion during the period, such as millions of new housing for the growing urban housing demands, mining poles, pulp and paper and other necessary areas. It had caused substantial damages to the domestic forests as well as ,for example, those in Philippines

The Third Period:
After Japan reached its first limits for growth, economic growth rates began to decline at the end of 60s and further damaged by the first oil shock.

What had happened in the third period during the 70s was that government with prime minister Tanaka started to introduced ever larger scale national development plans and began to implement numerous mega projects all over Japan. Thus large material producers such as steel could find new areas to dump their products. But this was destroyed by the second oil shock in 1979, when many of those large scale development project, such as Mutsu Ogawara Industrial Complex construction, became to be scraped. During the early 1980s.

• The Pulp and Paper Sector

1. The Origin of Government-Pulp Industry’s Alliance for Overseas Forest Resources Development and Import Policy

During the world war II, there was enormous over cut in Japanese main island and after Japan lost overseas colonies, Japan had to continue unsustainable tree harvesting in order to supply wood for the post-war restoration and new stages of economic development. During the US General Head Quarter (GHQ)’s occupation, they ordered to dissolve large Japanese conglomerates, including Oji Paper company and finally it was dissolved into 3 companies in 1949 ( originally .proposed as 7 division) , when China revolution was took place, and "the Cold war" started.

Wood hungry paper industry started to utilize remaining secondary pine forests in western part of Japan in early post-war period, which had problems of the other powerful competitor- Coal mining industry for their mining poles, so that they couldn’t get enough pine wood supply. .

In 1948, gradually recovered pulp companies got together and developed their new plan for the wood supply. As Oji paper already developed new hardwood pulping technology since 1939 ( only native beech species in early post-war stage), their plan was as followed.

1. Large scale pulpwood plantation should be developed for the longer term strategy
2. For the short term strategy, they would develop beech forest use.

Then they asked government that (1) Beech forest should be outside of the government logging regulation (2)Subsidies for the beech wood storage and transportation (3) Concerning the interria beech forests, public beech forest development corporation should be set up under direct government control (4) special discount wood price (5) Public financial support for transportation
(Hagino, inbid,P155)

Forestry agency agreed on increased logging permission and developed national forest resources sales to pulp industry. Among the various wood industry sector, pulp industry became to be the most influencial one. Because of the old history of Japan’s forestry and forest ownership problems, North American style of integrated forest companies have not been developed, so that integrated forest management policy has not be well developed. Forest sector has divided by various small and large forest owners, various wood use industries, various wood distributors from the traditional sectors to huge trading companies, and forest related public entities( Forestry agency, Ministry of International Trade and Industry= MITI, prefecture government and so on. . They construct the first hardwood pulp mill in Aichi prefecture in 1952, and started to clearcut remaining hardwood forests afterwards. They organized overall hardwood use industry, such as furniture and saw millers other than woodchip mills in order to sell higher quality hardwood for their better cost performance. This was the origin of the native beech forest dispute between government and environmentalists in the later stage ( after the late 1960s).

2. Alaska Pulp

In 1951, Japanese pulp industry asked GHQ with the Japanese government to allow them to utilize forests in Alaska, after their request to import wood from America, Canada, Russia, Sakhalin, Tropical Asia was declined by GHQ in earlier stage. According to the GHQ forestry experts who studied Japan’s forestry situation, there were 3 times more harvests in private forest lands than their growth rates, where 68% of wood were produced and 73% of the softwood were supplied. GHQ recommended sustained yield management in those forests( Hagino,1996). In their letter to GHQ, they appealed that if they could not obtain wood from Russia, then US’s enemy, it was impossible to follow what GHQ requested to Japanese forestry sector. Domestic forests could produce about 12 million cubic meter which was less than half of what Japan need( minimum 2,500 cubic meter at that stage)( Hagino, 1996) . The reason why Japanese pulp industry choose Alaska’s Tongas National Forest was, according to Mr.Hagino, as followed

1. Alaska’s forest contained coniferous wood( Hemlock and Sitka Spruce) which could be substitute wood from Sakhalin
2. Cheap stampage price
3. Colonial type of forestry operation could be possible
4. What Japan side need is far less than US government annual allowable cut
5. There are no pulp mill , except some 20 sawmillers, so that there would be little competition on the resource use.( Hagino, inbid,P320)

After the long negotiation, US government agreed this project, but only when they construct pulp mill there in order to improve local employment and economy. According to the Japan Export-Import Bank, who provided financial support for the project, pulp industry became not very interested, and other investors, such as Rayon companies and others became to be more principal investors( 20 years History of Export- Import Bank of Japan, 1971). This project became to be a large environmental disputes in the later stage and finally closed down in the middle of 1990s.

3. The Pulpwood Import Policies: MITI's incentives and evolution of the " Development and Import " Policy

In 1958, Japan Paper Association (JPA) set up internal " Foreign Wood Import Committee" and sought to promote oversea ’s forest resources development, since domestic hardwood resources could be utilized only in the short term, due to the resource limitation. In 1963, MITI- a strong ministry which regulate pulp and paper industry, introduced ministerial regulation, called " The Government Regulation for the New Pulping Facilities". In this investment guideline, MITI said it would give permission for the new investment of wood pulp facilities, only when companies increase import foreign wood chip. After this new guideline, woodchip import was increased rapidly and special wood chip tanker was beginning to be build after 1965. At first, they started to import from North America through giant forest companies such as Wyerhoueser, then Mangrove resources has been developed. It began from the southern part of philippines ( Zamboanga: 1960s), then Sarawak (Rajan river mouth since 1966), Sabah ( Sandakan and Tawau area: since 1971), East Kalimantan( Tarakan island area: 1976) , then finally in Irian Jaya( Bintuni Bay area, since 1989). In later stage, these practices became to be in question, since importance of Mangrove forest protection became to be widely recognized.

During the late 1950s and 60s, public criticism against pulp mill pollution became to be stronger, especially after the fishermen’s violent protest in Tokyo bay area( The Edogawa river mouth area), Japanese pulp industry started to invest pulp mill development overseas, such as Honshu Paper’s pulp mill development in British Columbia in 1967. Daishowa Paper started to invest woodchip mill development in Eastern Australia ( near Sydney) in late 60's, which became to be one of the hardest target by the conservation movement's campaign throughout for the last few decades since then.

Table Pulpwood Supplies and Self Sufficiency Trends ( 1,000 m3)

* Source: Wood Supply and Demand Table, Forestry Agency of Japan

* Foreign Supply includes imported wood chips, pulp and others ( as log equivalent volume)

* Domestic Supply excludes sawmill wastes and other recycled materials

4. Disappearance of " Satoyama" and The Final Abandonment of Domestic Forest Use by Pulp Industry

1. Public forest
2. Pulpwood production form the domestic public forests were accelerated during the late 60's and early 70's. For example, the annual logging plan in Yakushima island had increased up to 204,000 m3 in 1969 after the introduction of the Agency's special resource utilization project, compared to 175,000 m3 of the third forest management plan( between 1967-1971)
3. Private forest( mainly small holders)

In 1969,Japan Paper Association(JPA) asked Forestry Agency to help Paper industry to develop "Satoyama" forest ( = Villager's Gardening "Coppice" Forests for Charcoal Production) which have been increasingly unused after the " Energy Revolution" (The Government Emphasis to replace wood charcoal to imported Oil). Subsequently, Forestry Agency set up their special projects to develop them which had around 35 million m3 potential pulpwood and they decided to provide subsidy to construct logging road for it. This was the end of the long time government support for the rural small forest owners policy.

Despite of these agency's efforts, domestic pulpwood supplies became to be decreased and foreign pulpwood dependency have been increasingly deepened. According to Mr. Hagino, these events demonstrate the pulp and paper industry and Forestry Agency's move to abandon the domestic forestry and the Agency began to accumulate large debts as a results.

5. Pulpwood Plantation Policy: MITI/ JPA's Move From the Domestic to Overseas Plantation

As the domestic economic development policy resulted to increase costs of forestry operations, Forestry Agency scraped earlier policy to introduce large scale domestic pulpwood plantation. Instead, in 1969, MITI and JPA made agreement to set up new policy to introduce large scale pulpwood plantations in developing countries.

In 1970, MITI introduced a new subsidy scheme for the experimental pulpwood plantation projects in overseas and JPA established a new institution called " Association for the Tree plantation in the South"

In 1973, "Sinrin Sigen Sogo Kyougikai" (= Forest Resources Development Council) released a new plan ," The Basic Plan to Secure Overseas Forest Resources and Tree plantation" which included :

1. Identification of Overseas Forest Resources and Unused Wood Species
2. Information Gathering of the Social, Economic and Labor Conditions in the Relevant Areas
3. To Study Wood Based Industrial Developments in Those Countries
4. To Dispatch Forestry Attache in the Embacies there.
   

• The Development of The Post-War Domestic Timber Production and Timber Import Policies

1. The Key Changes of the Post-War Forest Management/ Regulation Policy in the 1960's= the Entrance of the High Economic Growth Era

During the early post-war period, Forestry Agency began to develop new forestry regulation and then management plan which was very deferent from what they had before the war.

Because of the fast growing timber and pulpwood demands, they tried to scrap traditional sustained yield approach, despite some scholars concerns. By 1958, they established new "National Forest Production Increase Plan" . The original duration of the plan was 40 years( 1958-1997).

At the Entrance of High Economic Growth Era: Wood Shortage Crisis and Policy Change

In July 1960, only two years after the plan started to implement , when the new prime minister Ikeda cabinet started to promote with the famous " doubling the income" policy.

About the same period, there was a sudden shortage of wood and the subsequent price hike. In order to solve this problems, political pressure put by Agriculture and Forestry Minister, Mr. Kono to introduce new "Wood Production Increase Plan". The main points of the order were:

1. More timber harvest from the national forest (about 4 million cubic meter more in 1961)
2. Introduce incentives (such as reduce taxation by half) to private forest owners in order to make them to cut 4 millions more during the year 1961-62.
3. 6 million cubic meter more wood imports during 1961-62 , comparing to 196o.

Although, the largest foreign timber suppliers at that time were the Philippines, followed by Russia, then log imports from United States was rapidly being increased during the early 1960s. Due to domestic wood price hike, American imported logs became cheaper than those from domestic forests. Sogo shosha ( general trading companies such as Mitsubishi) rushed to enter such wood trade.( Hagino,1996, Murashima,1986, Ando,1992)

Thus, already over harvesting domestic forestry was forced to increase more logging and the 4 years old long term " National Forest Production Plan" became further changed. This caused even more drastic depletion of the remaining domestic forest resources, this sudden policy changes stimulate more and more timber imports and dependency of overseas forest resources has been increased year by year.

This turning point also prompted forest conservation movement both in Japan and overseas in the later stages, too.

2. The New Port Facility Developments

The dramatic increase of overseas resources imports during late 1960s and serious accidents in the Nagoya bay area by floated wood caused by

"Isewan Typhoon" , government decided to introduce the first and second " Port Infrastructure Development 5 Years Plan" since 1961. In this scheme, they intend to construct new port facilities for steel, oil, coal related industries, as well as various other important industry sectors, including wood. Through this scheme, numerous number of wood port facilities were constructed, in various parts of Japan’s coastal lines. Among the wood related companies, Sogo shosha with some large wood distributors, could successfully obtained vast port area for wood storage

facilities thanks for the generous government’s cheap disposal policy. With this facilities, Sogo shosha’s dominant power to control timber imports and distribution

was strengthened. In 1973( the peak year of tropical log imports), there were 77 importers for North American logs, 123 for tropical logs, 47 for Russian logs, 13 major log importers controlled three quarter of the whole trade( Murashima,1986).

During those early log imports period, strong local saw millers protests were emerged both in the Philippines and in the Pacific Northwest of the United States( namely, Oregon and Washington states), such as " Save Our wood" campaign in Oregon. Because of the growing resource monopoly situation, represented by Wayerhoueser based in Takoma, Washington , many smaller saw millers were suffered from the wood shortage as well as the wood price hike. ( Thomas R. Cox, "The North American- Japanese Timber Trade" in "World Deforestation In the Twentieth Century" , 1988, Japan Wood Importer’s Association,197o and Japan South Seas Lumber conference, 1975).

This phenomenon showed us one part of the US monopoly evolution and the important influence of the Japanese log market for overseas forestry sectors, even though, the log import volume was proportionally far smaller than those for the domestic market in the States.

3. The Post-War Japan’s Housing and Construction Politics

During the high economic growth period, It was important for the government to provide cheaper housing for the growing number of new labor force who moved from rural areas to new towns and industrial complex. During the 1960s, High Story Apartment Complex called " Danchi" was being developed in various parts of Japan. As the economy grew rapidly and income got to be increased, people began to build their own houses, what they call," My Home" seekers phenomena. In 1968, there was a famous article appeared in influential "Chuo-Kohron" magazine, entitled " Housing Industry, New Hero for the Economic Growth" written by the MITI’s official who was then , interestingly, one of the directors in the "heavy industry "department.

In this year, annual housing starts reached more than one million units, the first time in Japan’s history, he argued that this fast growing sector would be the area where large capital should invest, together with the Space and Ocean related development area. ( Hayakawa,1988)

The year 1968 was called " the first year for the housing industry", because of this paper. Although, some steel companies already entered into " pre-fabricated

Housing" area, since 1955, more and more active investments by larger steel, plastics as well as wood industry rushed to enter this new business area, since late 60s. In addition, Higher quality apartment, called " mansion" became popular, where large and capital rich Sogo-shosha have been very active for those development and sales activities. Under such conditions, more and more hill side forests in the suburbs have been replaced by those housing development, with the weaker and weaker construction and housing development regulations ( See previous " Satoyama . Development" Capter)

Special Characteristics of the Post-War Housing and Construction Sector:

In the pre-modern and pre-war era, the majority of urban dwellers lived in apartments. Due to the resource limitation and availability, people tended to carefully built and maintained such dwellings for much longer period of time comparing to what have happened during the post-war period. Woods were utilized mostly for the Post and beams in the traditional Japanese wooden houses. Wood was too precious to be wasted, even when people need to rebuild new houses. After the World War II, these situation became completely changed. People lost their traditional custom to do so, and when people change their houses, people , in most of the cases, they destroy their houses and rebuild a new house on the same place.( This is one of the major source of ever increasing industrial waste problems) In addition, secondary house market was largely disappeared.

In the case of North America, there are established secondary house market. So people can sell their house when they need to move or obtain bigger houses. In order to sell their houses in better prices, they work very hard to maintain their houses.

In Europe, many people live in very old houses and maintenance is the major areas for the wood demands. Sunday carpenters, DIY activities are very common both in North America and Europe.

( This explanation alone cannot tell why The United States is the largest sawn wood consumer in the world. This clearly require further clarification. * The author's note)

The Origin, Characteristics, and Consequences of the Government Stimulation of Housing and Construction Policies:

1) Land Speculation:
Although government had policies to provide cheaper housing for ever increasing urban population and labor forces in the industrial zones, government didn’t have strong public housing activities. They have been stimulating private sector’s investments, especially after 1968- the first year of housing industry). Because of those situation, government have been promote weaker and weaker regulation for the housing and urban redevelopment activities. Uncontrolled land speculation took place, especially during the early 1970s and 80s until the end of the bubble economy era.

2) Tax and Other Incentives
In addition to the high land price, low valuation of houses and the lack of second hand houses market , high inherited taxation and tax exemption to the housing loan stimulated frequent "scrap and build" housing activities.

3) Emphasis on the Industrial Development Than Public Policy
As I referred earlier, government incentives for housing and urban development has been promoted as a good investment area for large private capitals. So those investors such as steel, plastics and other large material producers could received huge benefits throughout these processes that could help them to reduce their problems of over production capacities and contributed to support " economic growth".

4) Deregulation and Urban Redevelopment as a Vehicle to Increase Domestic Demands
Deregulation of the urban land use/planning as well as urban redevelopment became to be the major causes for the massive removals of old houses and buildings, thus contributed massive landscape destruction in many part of Japan. During the 1960 to 1990, more than 30 million houses were built and the housing stocks increase was less than half. More than 16 million houses were lost. In average, more than 500,000 houses were destroyed annually, while in old days, the main factors of such disappearance of houses were natural disasters and fires. Huge numbers of urban inhabitants have been unwillingly resettled, due to the land price hikes and redevelopment schemes. Construction and real estate related urban Mafia were mobilized to remove those who resisted from the redevelopment schemes by phisical threats, such as intentional fires and damaging houses by dump trucks and so on.

*Recent Japan's recession and subsequent shut down of number of logging camps throughout the Pacific rim timber exporting countries clearly showed the relation between Japan’s housing starts and construction activities and the rate of annual timber harvesting volumes in those countries.

*Housing also stimulate many other related material consumption, such as furniture, home electric equipment ( TV, Video, Cooler, washing machines etc.)

5) Nation Wide Massive Environmental Destruction by Large Construction Projects.
Due to the government stimulation, most of the rivers were dammed, coastal areas were filled by concrete, so much highways and the large scale logging road network construction took place, thus almost no natural lands could escape from the government land use and development plans for these construction and public engineering activities. While these development potential reached their limits, after the massive environmental destruction which stimulate conservationists resistance, these construction and engineering Mafia have been seeking new business opportunities in overseas with Aid money , such as number of dams constructions in many Asian countries, which have been one important part of deforestation causes.

6) Heavy Chemical Industry- Construction Based Post-War Japan Politics.
These phenomena have been supported by the inflexible and centralized budget allocation system, which have been largely controlled by the Conservative Politicians- Bureaucrats- Industry complex which is called the" Iron Triangle". It is widely recognized and heavily criticized by the public that there have been no significant changes of the share of the hundreds of billions of dollars public construction related budget among the ministries. In addition, human relations relating to the government bureaucracy as well as construction related business have been mobilized for the election campaign for the conservative party which made political change so difficult. We can also observe some similarities of such politics with those of timber politics in some Asian countires.

4. The Development and consequences of the Trade Relations in The Post War-Japan

1. Japan-U.S. Trade Disputes and U.S. Demands to Increase Domestic Consumption in Japan
   The post-war Japan's export-oriented industrial development policy and its massive exports of the various industrial goods to U.S. resulted to open up serious trade disputes between the two countries. Those conflicts started from the textile industry, moved to steel then Automobile. Japanese steel production became to exceed that of U.S. during the 1970's and massive export performance made U.S. government to take actions against Japan's policies. Those central U.S. -Japan economic relations and associated disputes resulted U.S. government new demands to Japan to stimulate domestic consumption as well as to stimulate to increase direct investment from Japan to U.S. in order to relieved those disputes.
   Those U.S. actions stimulated Japan's new policies to increased government spending for the construction sectors and the introduction for the more and more " deregulation policies on the urban and the housing development and planning .
   
2. Trade Relations with Canada and Other Resource Rich Countries
   Another example was that when Japan's automobile industry planed to export automobile to Canada, the government of Canada was said to asked Japan to give permission to introduce North American Style of houses called " Two by Four" houses during the 1970's. Even though the then chairperson of the Japan Architects society, professor Yoshizaka from the Waseda University strongly oppose that proposal, since he argued that it should have destructive effects to Japan's wood architects tradition, the strong industry lobby group successfully introduced this new policy and regulation. Similar cases could be observed in many other bilateral trading relations between Japan and many developing countries, where Japanese industrialists found promising markets for their industrial goods exports, governments of those countries requested Japan to increase imports from them, which were largely those of natural resources including logs and other forest products. It was said that Japan's trading firms became to have obligations to increase imports of such products.
   

7. A Selected Short Case Studies of the impact of Japan's Domestic development Policies in Overseas Forests

1. The Cases of Forest Resources Developments in Kalimantan, Indonesia

One of the typical cases of the post-war " Development and Imports" policy (MITI) was found in Kalimantan, in the early 1960's and 1970's. It became obvious for the timber industry in Japan that once rich forest resources in the Philippines became to be apparent their limitation during the late 1950's, Japanese related industrialists and relevant government authorities jointly designed to initiate the new forest resources development plan in Indonesia. The special mission were dispatched to Indonesia and started to negotiate then the Indonesia's president of Sukarno, who at that time suffer economic crisis, due to his strong policy to restrict foreign investments and subsequent shortages of foreign currency and budget shortages. In the early 1960's, Both side made agreement to initiate forest resources development schemes in Kalimantan and other places there. Since Indonesia had foreign investment restriction policy , they developed special ways for the development, called " Production Sharing Methods", which meat that Japan provide financial and technical supports and Indonesia would pay for them by providing logs to Japan. The Kalimantan Forest Development Corporation( KFDC) were established and financial support was provided by the newly established " Overseas Economic Cooperation Fund(OECF), known as the world largest bilateral loan aid agency which used to be the soft loan window of the huge Export and Import Bank of Japan( EX-Im Japan). ( The History of the South Sea Timber, Japan South Seas Lumber Conference,1975, The 30 Years History of the Japan Lumber Importers' Association, JLIA,1983)

Although that scheme was not very successful for the number of reasons during the 60's, including the unexpected flows of the Philippines logs which were still cheaper and higher in quality together with the many difficulties to run such kinds of business operation in then Indonesia, it certainly started up the first modern large scale forestry development there.

With the foreign diplomatic, political pressures, and increased foreign natural resources demands, president Sukarno was replaced by the former president Suharto, who then was introduced new trade and foreign investment policies as well as various resource and land development laws and regulations which could boost foreign investments and resource exploitation activities including timber and minerals. One other well known case was the Freeport copper mining projects in Irian Jaya which was principaly owned by the U.S. mining giant and the 8 Japanese mining and trading companies were involved in the development which was supported by EX-Im Bank of Japan which provide financial support and the marktes. ( Mining Digest Year Book, Resouces and Energy Agency of MITI, The 20 Years History of Ex-Im Bank of Japan)

In the 1970's, the large scale mechanized logging were further introduced in Kalimantan and it was called as " Forest Development Olympic" due to the large scale foreign investment from the many countries whose major destination was that of Japan and lesser extent , those of Korea and then Taiwan. The first peak of imports of those logs to Japan was recorded in 1973, the first oil shock year, when the Japan's annual housing starts reached its first peak( exceeding 1.9 million housing starts). Forests in Borneo Island suffered largely from the post war-Japan's domestic industrial and urban housing related policies, including the East Malaysian states of Sabah and Sarawak during the past 4 decades.

As a result, forest resources in this once timber rich and the largest island of tropical rainforest was largely licensed out and subsequently exhausted by nowadays. That large scale forest development schemes opened up new opportunities for the Chinese businessmen who were concession holders and very close to the president family as well as military in this country to develop large scale wood based industries. Timber industry became to be one of the most important export sector after the oil and gas sector.

After the log export ban in the 1985, following the move for the nationalization of the logging industry in Indonesia since the mid 70s, Indonesia became to be the world largest plywood exporter. Although, with the Bob Hasan's monopoly policy, Indonesian plywood began to replace domestic plywood production in Taiwan, Korea and Japan, forest resources flows from Kalimantan to Japan have not been ended.

2. The Cases of the Lesser Used and Rare Timber Species Developments

1. Purpuk :
   Purpuk is a wood species which grow in the mangrove swamp areas , particularly in Kalimantan and the East Malaysia. In East Kalimantan, Inhutani, the state own forest company who owned the largest concession there, started to exploit this species since the late 70's and they found a large potential markets in Japan in the 80's. It is a white color, high quality wood in which Japanese furniture industry identified as a ideal material for their products. Since then, massive scale exploitation took place, and it became to be the Dollar earning star for the Inhutani in the region. As a result, it has been being nearly extinct and became to be a kind of endangered tree species in the region. One of the Japanese timber trade experts observed that in many cases, when some new species was introduced in the Japanese wood market, many related industry began to utilize them as a fashion in the wide spread areas.
   
2. Taiwan Cypress and Laotian Cypress:
   The similar situation could be observed for those special soft wood species. The textures and the qualities shared with those of old growth cypress in Japan which were used for the shrine related constructions as well as some other religious activities such as a ship shaped wooden bowls for wedding ceremonies. After the old growth cypress was being depleted in the post-war Japan, special traditional temple and shrine carpenters and related wood industry sought for the similar kind of wood species in overseas. The first victim was found in Taiwan's mountainous forest areas. A few decades after, this species were largely depleted and conservation movement there made much efforts to protect what was left there and the logging and export ban was successfully introduced after the 1980s.

   The same Japanese sector continued to seek for such species and subsequently identified similar quality species in the mountainous forests in Laos since the late 1980s. Even some of the Forestry Agency's officials showed their concerns and wrote that it might become the very case which Japan would be solely responsible on the fate of the particular species and forest in overseas, as they have experienced much criticism from the international conservation communities since late 80's.

   In the North America, some other soft wood species such as " Port Orford Cider" in Oregon, Yellow Cider in British Columbia shared the similar story with those Asian countries. According to the Oregon Natural Resources Defense Council, this particular species has been being exported only to Japan and became to be an endangered species there, although it is also threatened by the transmitted virus originate disease. In the case of the Yellow Cider, some of the Taiwan investors took some leading roles, since their original resources for their business in their country was finished.

   There are also some other cases such as the last remaining old growth western Red Cider in the interior of BC have been being exploited by one Japanese timber company which has been being used for the raw materials for Japanese paper sliding doors. I have also observed similar patterns in the cases of the old growth white Spruce from Alaska as well as that from Alberta, western Canada, where more than 10 million hectors of the remaining Boreal forests have been licensed out for the Japanese investors since the late 1980s.

3. Saw mills and Housing Material Factories development in the North America
   When the Oregon and the Washington states of the US Pacific Northwest, increased their restrictions for the log exports to Japan which originated from the Public Forests, after the extinction of those from the private lands, Japanese trading firms was started to invest new sawmill developments in those states, in order to secure the old growth resources flows to Japan since 1970s. It is interesting to note that according to a researcher from the Forestry Policy Research Institute of Japan, the old growth contents in the US logs for the Japanese markets has been decreasing for the last a few decades. Since then , because of the Japan's investment for the sawmills in those states, some significant rates of the old growth contents were identified in the exported sawn wood from these States.

   ( Tezuka, A Long Term Observations of the Forest Resources Trends in the U.S. Pacific Northwest, Forestry Policy Research Institute,1991= in Japanese)

   Similarly, since the late 80s, Japanese Housing industry started to invest housing material processing factories in the BC's coastal area in order to secure the highest quality and cheap old growth housing materials there.( Iwai, The North American Forest resources and the Japanese Housing Industry, Ringyo Chosa-Kai = A publisher for the Forestry Research of Japan,1990, in Japanese)

   As we are now observing the severe effects of the depression in Japan, so many logging camps have been closed down in Canada as well as many countries in the Southeast Asia, which are clearly demonstrating the close linkages between the bilateral trade and the market forces in Japan and the forests in those regions.

4. The native Nothofagos ( Chilean Beech ) Forest Development and Tree Plantation Investment in Chile
   Massive harvesting activities has started in the beech forest zones in Chile by the Japanese investors since late 1980s, when the paper consumption and paper raw material demands has rapidly increased during that bubble economy era. By that time, Japanese native beech forests were largely depleted and the national conservation movements made massive efforts to protect what remained in Japan without knowing such moves. Some industry's observer stated that there were almost no Japanese pulp and paper companies who did not visit Chile to seek for the development potentials of that species during the mid 80s. Subsequently, some of the large trading companies made investment for the development of the wood chip mills in the southern part of Chile. Since then, the environmentalists campaigns have been being mounted in Chile with their supporters from the North America and Europe. One of the large ambitious project which planed to convert native Beech forest into Eucalyptus plantation was successfully halted by the Chilean authority because of the wide spread public concerns. Although their exploitation activities in the native forests in Chile has not been ended, this resulted some significant impacts to those Japanese investors in the cases of plantation development. While those companies stated to introduced nominal demonstration projects to replant small areas of the native Beech species, the land purchse activities for the larger scale pulpwood plantation has changed from the native forest areas to the farm land areas. Unfortunately, it was not possible to develop nation wide campaign to protect those forests, due to the limited capacities among the conservation organizations in Japan.
   
5. The Cases of the Wood Chipping Operations in the Native Eucalyptus Forests in Australia
   Since the early 1960s, there has been the large scale wood chipping operations in the various forested states in Australia, and most of the products has been exported to Japan. This was the first case of the temperate native hardwood species exploitation activities in the post war Japan. The strong conservation movements in the state of Tasmania, New South Wales, Victoria, and Western Australia targeted this activities and became to be one of the most important central political agenda in this country. For example, 500 people were arrested in the much disputed forest area in the NSW during one of the height of the campaigns in the 80s, while more recently the Federal parliament were surrounded by on one hand, "Forest Embassy " by the environmentalists and on the other by the demonstration trucks by the forest industry when the parliament discussed whether or not they introduced a new bill which restrict wood chip export to Japan. Although the government successfully introduced a new plan to increase protected areas and tighter regulations for the native forest developments in the early 90s, their implementation yet has been much successful after the new conservative government took power afterwards.

   For some reasons, Japanese mass media yet successfully covered these well known forest disputes in this country, despite the facts that they have many correspondence in the various states there which made Japanese public unaware on the issues.

6. Proliferation of the Wood Chip Mills in the Secondary Hardwood Forests of the US Southeast
   As one of the case study appeared in the North American UC workshop, the massive hardwood forest exploitation and the proliferation of the chip mills took place in the many of the US Southeast states, which are located largely in the Great Mississippi river basin. Those forests have been used for the US pulp industry, wood panel production, such as the oriented strand board, furniture in the lesser extent as well as for wood chip exports to Japan. For the last few decades, US South region became the largest supplier for the pulpwood due to the resource depletion in the Northwest, the previous major species which have been being utilized by US pulp and paper industry was softwood, namely , the Southern Pine. Although the share of the exports has been the minor part and about less than one tenth = about 5 million m3 or 2.7 million tons has been being exported to Japan annually , it already became to be the second largest hardwood chips supplier for Japan and after Australia, by far the largest exporter of hardwood chips in the past ( around 6 million m3 or about 3 million tons has been imported annually ). In considering the extent of the disputes in Australia and Chile, the role of Japan's imports cannot be seen as insignificant, although comparatively small in the overall harvesting volume in the region ( from Chile, around 3 million m3 has been exported to Japan annually, of which more than half is from the native forests and others are from the plantations). As stated by Doug Sloane in his paper, unlike those in Chile and Australia, these new forest harvesting has been happened due to the increased regulation in the Pacific Northwest forests, not started by Japanese investment. The rapid increase of the new and massive wood chip mill development has started during the mid 80s and the export of hardwood chips to Japan started in the late 80s, slightly after the wood chip export from Chile was started during the bubble economy period in Japan. These harvesting operation causes serious implications to lead extinction of the endangered species as well as the destruction for the many other ecological functions and local landscapes. Some observers think that it would become the largest forest disputes in the States for the coming decades, although it has been the least known in the US until recently and almost unknown overseas environmental disputes for Japanese society.
   
7. Pulp and Pulpwood Plantation Developments in Overseas
   The Case of the P.T.TEL
   Since MITI and JPA introduced their new schemes for the pulpwood plantation development in overseas after the 1970s, there has been some significant investment took place in Brazil (since mid 70s- the first attempt), Chile ( since late 80s) and some Asian countries( Vietnam, China ), Papua New guinea, South Africa, and increasingly in Australia and New Zealand. Since they are involved in the large scale land use changes, they often resulted to increase potential local land use competition and community concerns. One of the extreme cases might be identified in the case of P.T. TEL in the South Sumatra , Indonesia. while the Japanese investment was only for the pulp mill development by two private companies with OECF involvement as one third of the shareholders, with Suharto fomily's involvement. There have been substantial European companies and export credits imvolvement as well.
   Pulpwood plantation has been being established by the subsidiary of local partner- the Barito Pacific ,the largest wood based conglomerates in Indonesia. Numerous number of villagers from many villages have lost their farm lands, forests as well as rubber estates without any compensation, with the exception of the compensated villagers blow the market price in the pulp mill development areas where public money from Japan are involved. The pulp mill construction has been well underway and public concerns in Indonesia, Japan and Europe have been generated as well.

Conclusion and Recommendation

In this paper, the author intended to identify the major factors which stimulate wood and other material consumption that would influenced deforestation and forest degradation process in the Asian pacific region as well as the changes of their land use patterns. Those are

1. Dominant and Main Stream Political and Economic Activities Which Have Stimulated Particular Material and Resource Production and Consumption Patterns in Each Particular Political Settings in Each Particular Historical Moment.
2. Forestry and Timber Sectors Have Been the Only a Part of These Linkages.
3. For Instance, Steel, Petrochemical and other Major Industries, Domestic and International Power Relations have been the Key Players to Have Made These Phenomena Happened.
4. International Power and Hegemony Straggle During the Western Colonization Period Might Contribute Japan To Develop Certain Extreme Social and Political as well as Economic Transformation Which Might Introduced Some Psychological Origin of These Extreme Pattern of Development Mentalities Throughout the Modernization Period.
5. Weak Civil Society Elements Which Resulted From These Extreme Development Patterns May Have Been Supporting These Patterns and That Became to be the Major Obstacles for the Necessary Changes , Although There Have Been Some Significant Efforts Being Developed By Some Part of the Civil Society to Limits these Consumption and Other Related Activities.

Recommendation For Actions

1. Stimulate solution oriented scientific research to scrutinize the fundamental relations BETWEEN forest degradation and changes of land use patterns both domestic /overseas AND wide spread linkages between ranges of economic, industrial development and associated land use policies as well as political structures and priorities.
2. Crucial needs to make people understand such relations in order to re-prioritize the budget allocation and change the fundamental direction for the overall development and value of the society
3. Recognize the reversal thinking from the endless major human activities determine the changes of ecological background to the Ecological and Social Limits determine the Limits of Growth
4. Introduce and stimulate major political reforms to empower civil society and communities to be responsible for the land and resource management both in Japan and Asian countries.
5. Western Society, particularly, That of United States, need to understand these historical linkages to the Asian Development politics and forest loss which might have consequences even today which require wider priority changes in the wider and deeper international political economy and geopolitics.

Reference

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Peter Dauvergne "Shadows in The Forest- Japan and the Politics odf Timber in Southeast Asia" The MIT Press,1997

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Export-Import Bank of Japan" 20Years History", Ex-Im Japan, dec.1976(in Japanese)

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Hideo Kobayashi, Okazaki Testuji, Yonekura Seiichiro, and NHK," History of Japan INC in the Showa Era" Sogensha,1995(in Japanese)

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