2002 Volume 11 Issue 4 Pages 249-269
I have been engaged in business and research activities of tropical forest since 1960’s. This report will be described based on these various kind of experiences.
At the beginning of 1990’s when The Japan Society of Tropical Ecology was established, many peoples in the world had keen interest to the global environmental issue especially to the deforestation of tropical forest Ten years has passed since UNCED (earth summit of Rio de Janeiro), many effort and challenge were done for combatting against deforestation, by United Nation, international organization and also by many nations. However, tropical natural forest were lost 1.52 million hectares annually during 1990s (FAO, 2001). Major causes of tropical deforestation are considered as social and economical issues. Therefore, tropical deforestation problem can not be solved without improving social system and economical problems. In these ten years, technology was advanced for reforestation of tropical forest, but its technology could not well utilize due to social and economical reasons. In many tropical countries, the wood industry contribute to local economy and employment, also wood products are important export commodity. Therefore, the development of wood industry without decreasing forest resources is crucial issue for sustainable tropical forest management.
In current report, background of deforestation will be described, then present situation of world forest resources and consumption, and production of wood products will be analyzed (session 1 and 2). Japan has imported huge volume of south sea logs, wood products from south eastern Asian and south pacific countries during last 40 years, which will be cleared in session 3. A answer to misunderstanding for commercial logging is described in session 4. Basing on these results, I will describe proper trading patterns of Japanese woods product import as “import cultivate resources”.
